Tag Archives: Air Force reserves

Chapter 94, The Hard Thing

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I’ve always been intrigued  by expressions.  Years ago my brother-in-law Lou bought a book about the origins of phrases in the english language and eventually we got a copy as well.  I know it’s kind of geeky but that’s what I am!  For example, the other day, Peg and I were watching the news and a reporter used the term “tarmac”.  Peg turned to me and said, “You flew for 35 years and I never heard you use that word.  What’s the story?”.  Unless she really wanted a long dissertation, she shouldn’t have asked.

In the early 1800’s a Scottish gentleman by the name of MacAdam came up with a process of paving roads, called macadamization, which involved layers of crushed stone and sand.  It made a better drained and less rutted road for carriages and wagons but produced lots of dust and was prone to washouts.  Years later, in the 1830’s, tar was added to the process, originally coal tar, which significantly improved the process.  This tar reinforced macadamization became referred to as “tarmac”.  With the exception of one airfield in Scotland, tarmac was replaced by asphalt and concrete decades ago.  It seems like only the news media is holding on to the term, but then the media isn’t well known for actually checking their facts.

The phrase that really got stuck in my head this week is “going native”.  I think we all know what it means but where did it come from?  At the height of the British empire, with the British military stationed around the world, the problem arose that members of the military and foreign service would become so immersed in the local culture that they would begin to set aside their british air of superiority and embrace the “inferior” native population.  To prevent this “going native” problem, troops were limited to short tours and rotated regularly.

We’ve come a long way.  At least we think we have.  When we’re deployed overseas we encourage our military to immerse themselves in other cultures.  To learn the language, or at least bits of it, to make a good impression, and to become involved in communities.  I understand that our purpose for being deployed is totally different that the purposes of the British empire but I think we did inherit their fear of going native.  We’ve just applied it differently.

I’ve spoken before of the evils of careerism in the military.  How the constant movement, at great expense to the taxpayer, facilitates upward mobility.  Get in, make some “great” change to the organization, get promoted, and get out.  Let’s not get too involved in people’s lives, in local problems.  That could get messy, that’s could get hard.  But here’s where we can’t let active duty ignorance infect the reserves.  Going native isn’t a liability, unless you want to use the military against the local population, native is what the reservist already is. Reservists are already invested in the community.  They embrace the local culture because they are the local culture.  They care about the members of the unit because they’ve grown up with them and are willing to do the hard work to help each other and make the unit the best it can be.  Sadly, I’ve hear AFRC senior leaders use the phrase “going native” as a pejorative.  But let’s not limit this discussion to the military.

There is a trend in our society to move on to something “better” when the going gets tough.  To do what’s fun for us in lieu of what’s going to have a real impact on our family and friends.  To eschew the hard work of daily involvement and, sometimes, drudgery in favor of what we want.  Sacrifice, commitment, dedication, loyalty, words that I’m afraid have been lost in a world of self-promotion, selfishness, and narcissism.  Do me a favor.  Find someone this weekend who is doing the hard work.  They’re not always easy to find because, well, they’re busy doing the hard work.  Thank them for what they do.  Look around for opportunities to go native.

Chapter 92, “The Last Guy”

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I’m going to ask my non-air force friends to bear with me today because there really is application in today’s discussion to the civilian world.

In many ways the Air Force Reserves has a totally different culture than the active duty Air Force. Active duty leadership, and sadly reserve leadership as well, is forever trying to squeeze the “round peg” reserves into the “square peg” active duty failing to acknowledge the strengths of the former. For example.

I’ve been to dozens of conferences where they’ve invited a JAG to come and speak about legal issues that might face a commander. Inevitably it leads to the subject of fraternization. Now I know you military types know what I’m talking about but the idea that you can’t date, let alone marry, someone you fall in love with is a concept foreign to the civilian world. It makes sense in a military setting but here’s where the train falls of the track in the reserves. As part time military, reservists are only on military status for a very limited number of days and are therefore only subject to the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) on those days. The air force has no say in who you date or marry when you’re not on duty. Every JAG, after long discussions, grudgingly comes to the same conclusion. They don’t like it. They don’t advertise it. But it’s true. On active duty they hand out Letters of Reprimand, Article 15s, and force people out of the military. But in the reserves, we deal with it. You have to keep couples out of each other’s chain of command. You have to occasionally transfer one or the other to a different organization but in the end, we make it work very successfully. I had dozens of officer/enlisted couples in my units and as long as there was no contact during duty days there was rarely a problem. That is just one example. Here’s the more interesting and challenging one.

The Air Force has a very strict up or out structure. You’re expected to progress in your career in rank and position or your services are no longer required. I’ve discussed the folly of that process in the past but in the reserves things can be a little different.

I’ve known several guys who have risen to the position of squadron commander and then, for a variety of reasons like family health problems or civilian job changes, had to step down from the position. Now in most organizations, both military and civilian, the former “guy in charge” finds another job, retires, or moves away but in the reserves there are certain skill sets that you can’t afford to throw away. Skill sets like pilot and navigator take years to develop and losing those talents is something the taxpayer can’t afford to do. I have seen former commanders successfully step down from leadership and successfully remain in the unit as a line crewmember. It would be like a CEO stepping down and then working the production line. It can work but it takes a very special guy and most don’t have the maturity or are too egocentric to make it happen. You have to be willing to accept the fact that things will change and the worst thing you can do is say even one word about how you think you had a better plan. It’s the single quickest way to destroy an organization. If folks don’t like a decision the new guy makes they automatically go to the old guy asking for an opinion. It’s OK to have a sympathetic ear but the ONLY acceptable response is unwavering support for the new guy. It takes a bigger man then most men are capable of being.

It’s even a little weird being the last guy, who retired, still lives in the area, and communicates regularly with the guys in the organization. I told my replacement I wouldn’t darken the door of the group for six months, and I think I kept that promise, and my advice has always been to communicate your concerns and keep your eyes on what’s best for the organization not just yourself.

I am concerned about the direction of the Air Force and the military as a whole but I hope the continuing budget problem forces us to take a look at how we manage people and how we often waste valuable human assets by forcing them up or out.

Chapter 44, The Moral of the Story

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For those who are reading this without having read Chapter 43, you’ll need to go to scroll down to fully appreciate the context!

The gauntlet has been thrown!  Mark asked the question last week, “So, where’s the moral in the story?”.  That, my friend, is a good question.  I like to think there’s an object lesson in almost any story so, after much thought, here we go.

We’re given tasks every day.  Whether it’s from your boss, or your wife, or even your Dad.  We all have work to do and, usually, a limited time to do it in.  The confusion with difficult taskings come when it’s not clear how to accomplish the job or what the end results should be.  In the military we call it “commander’s intent”.  You need to know what the desired end result is.  For instance, if my Dad had said that we need to find some way to calm down the nasty goat then we might have come up with another solution.  Maybe we could have drugged the thing, or bought a female goat so that he would have an “outlet” for his goatly passions.  We might have just put a round in his head and served up some cabrito for dinner. But, we knew he wanted the goat to continue to be available for mowing duties.

The other half of a tasking is the method.  When there is something to be done there is often a preferred method or, at least, a limited number of options.  If my Dad had instructed us to remove the goat’s offending appendage we could have used a variety of more expedient techniques.  Pruning shearers, machete, chainsaw, or my Mom’s butcher knife, any would have adequately accomplished the job.  But the goat would have either bled out, died from shock, or ended up with a nasty infection.

The Air Force has been given a task.  Whether or not you agree with the national security objectives of the administration, we find ourselves in the position of trying to maintain the security of the country with an ever shrinking budget.  The goal is to maintain as much capability as possible at the lowest possible cost.  Sounds simple but, even with our nation’s future at stake, the Air Force has continued to play politics and failed to even try to apply any cost benefit analysis to its recommendations.  They were given an opportunity to go back to the drawing board after the utter failure of the Force Structure Announcement earlier this year but instead of working to meet the tasking professionally with data and common sense they have, again, attempted to apply a pure political solution to, what should be, an apolitical recommendation.  The states have a voice when it comes to the ANG but the Reserves finds itself in the position of the bastard stepchild.  For example, AFRC is saddled with three incredibly expensive wings on facilities fully owned and operated by the reserves yet the Air Force seems to be blind to their fiscal responsibility and continue to recommend the most cost effective units for closure.

Either senior Air Force leadership is executing a brilliantly conceived plan to convince Congress that they are incapable of doing their job and the BRAC process should be initiated so they can blame someone else, or someone has used the little rubber band on them and they care more about their own careers than the security, financial and military, of the country.

I do hope it’s the former.

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