Force shaping gutted the third assignment guys. You have a few true tanker guys, who returned from staff, but many O-4/5s are crossflow. They are good to have around but they lack the certainty in gk. Most defer to the second assignment Captain IPs because their gk is outdated or forgotten. This manifests in copilots who are not ready for upgrade, Q3's, and where did you learn that moments. Many IPs flying the line are young.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/us-military-tries-halt-brain-drain/413965/ This piece does reiterate much of what's already been said in the Military Times article, but as a young millennial, I identified more with Barno's discussion about the cultural and generational aspects of the issue than I did Jowers. Again, nothing really new, I just thought I'd share the read. It also sheds a little more light TnkrToad's history lesson.
I'll see if I can get my hands on the slides, but what I was trying to communicate was this: RPA crews have been compared to other aircraft crews (AWACS & C-17) in a scientifically valid way and have significantly worse health/life outcomes when controlling for all other variables (Age, Rank, O/E, Gender, Marital Status, etc).