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Notes -
Only officers get to fly planes in the military, and you need a college degree to be an officer, and college admissions are stacked against white men.
I would be very surprised that airlines would want to hire fewer military pilots. Civilian flight instructors are generally barely out of flight school themselves, and only doing it to tick boxes toward getting their ATP. The military selects flight instructors at the tail of their careers, with tons of real world flight experience, and a passion for passing their knowledge along. Military flight students are unquestionably getting better training than civilians.
If you're a little lucky and talented and have an in to your local congressman, the military will also pay you to get a college degree. Failing that, if you're smart and otherwise physically and mentally whole enough that the military will let you fly a plane, you'll probably be able to get into college somewhere regardless of what color you are.
From what I gather it's for DEI or DEI-adjacent/like reasons.
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