Hmm...
Not bagging on either of you here, but you've given me a thought. The erosion of employer loyalty, i think, has been an issue for quite some time--decades if not longer. The most apparent manifest of this being the disappearance of the employer sponsored pensions in favor of IRAs and then 401Ks, while leaving base pays level, or declining. The American worker little noticed this erosion in compensation over the two decades when they were implemented, given multiple recessions and recoveries to cover the tracks. No, I don't' think the slip of the union influence has been to blame--I think unions were a victim of their own erosion of usefulness as information flowed ever more freely.
So is the AF a victim of it's own desire to be more like it's Big Brother private Business? Is it adopting the more cut-throat attitude that has been prevalent in the efficiency driven B-schools and their progeny over the past 30 years?
As an example, I submit: was the Bathtub a by-product of AF leadership trying to save as many souls as they could, at the time? Or just myopic personnel management, as we all subscribe?