Not using former military controllers should be a crime. They are the best at what they do, FAA types without mil experience are a distant second, in my experience.
He does not want the best. He wants the worst, to increase accidents.
Silence from Congress.
A military controller probably isn’t ready for rush hour at Kennedy, but the failure rate would have to be lower. The other sad part of this is blowing off kids that completed specific ATC courses of study at colleges and then are told they don’t meet the desired diversity criteria. The college programs emerged specifically to deal with this expected shortage and now those kids are finding out they wasted their time and money. I won’t even go into the malfeasance on the part of FAA officials gaming the system for candidates that are their preferred color.
Not in mine, and I had 35 years as an enroute ATCS, 13 years in Chicago.
The very best controllers have a 'talent' that has nothng to do with the military.