DC’s Air & Space Museum to Reopen With T-38 Exhibit Honoring ‘Jackie’ Cochran

Oct. 7, 2022 | By Chris Gordon

The T-38 Talon was the world’s first supersonic jet trainer. Airmen and astronauts have flown it. It entered service with the U.S. Air Force in 1961, and nearly 1,200 were produced.

After more than six decades, the venerable trainer finally has a replacement in the T-7 Red Hawk. It also gets a place in the world’s premiere aerospace museum thanks to a remarkable female pioneer.

When the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C., reopens to the public Oct. 14, it will showcase a T-38 for the first time. The Smithsonian received the plane from the Air Force in 2004. It was stored outside of public view but was recently restored and briefly displayed at the museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va., to prepare it for its place in the nation’s capital.

The T-38 has remained a stalwart of Air Force training. The Thunderbirds used it—the Air Force’s aerial demonstration team. Hardly cast off, the aircraft has served the Air Force well into the 21st century, but the airframes are aged, and its characteristics do not suit the skills required of pilots of the Air Force’s current fighters and bombers.

But the T-38 has always been fast.

“This Trainer Can GO, GO, GO!” Air Force Magazine proclaimed in March 1961. The epithet is now quoted on a massive video screen behind the museum’s T-38.

That speed was why Jacqueline “Jackie” Cochran chose the aircraft to set eight aviation world records in 1961, including a speed record of 844.2 miles per hour over a 15km oval course Aug. 24, 1961. Those records are painted under the aircraft’s canopy.

Records set by Jacqueline “Jackie” Cochran are displayed on the side of a T-38 Talon at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Staff photo by Chris Gordon.

With many T-38s in existence, the National Air & Space Museum is selective when it adds to its collection. When the aircraft flow by Cochran became available, they chose it for a prominent role in the redesigned building on the National Mall, one of the world’s most visited museums.

“It has qualifications as an exciting design and record-setting design on its own,” Dorothy Cochrane, a curator at the museum, told Air & Space Forces Magazine. “Then you add Jackie Cochran to it and all her legacy.”

Cochran, nicknamed the “Speed Queen,” was a pioneer of women’s aviation. She became the first woman to break the sound barrier in 1953 while flying the Canadian variant of the F-86 Sabre.

Jacqueline “Jackie” Cochran is pictured in the cockpit of a Canadair F-86 with Chuck Yeager. Photo courtesy Air Force Flight Test Center History Office.

Born in the Florida panhandle, Cochran wanted a more prosperous life. She became a hairdresser in New York City.

“She was determined to make a life for herself, to become someone of note,” Cochrane said. “Then, because she was in the cosmetic and hairdressing business, she rubbed elbows down at Palm Beach, Fla., with some very wealthy people down there.”

Cochran met Floyd Odlum, a financier who was involved in aviation. They married in 1936. Oldlum suggested Cochran use the glamor of flying to market her business.

“She was so good at it, so adept at it, that it became her driving force,” Cochrane said. “Her business was fine. It flourished for years. But then her business was setting records. And being the best pilot out there.”

Cochran was more than just a daredevil. As World War II broke out, the U.S. military was unsure if it could find enough men to be pilots. Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold, commander of the Army Air Forces, turned to Cochran.

“In that emergency, I called in Jacqueline Cochran, who had herself flown almost everything with wings and several times had won air races from men who now are general officers of the Air Forces,” Arnold said in a speech in 1944. “I asked her to draw a plan for the training and the use of American women pilots.”

The program, which eventually became the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), was a massive success. It trained about 1,100 pilots for wartime service, with Cochran at the head. It played a crucial role in the war effort, as women ferried aircraft from production facilities, towed targets for live-fire training, and served as instructors. Thirty-eight women died in service.

Technically, the women were government civil service employees and were not entitled to any military benefits or honors. The women lobbied for the WASP to be militarized, which Arnold strongly supported.

However, male pilots pushed back, and the media and Congress soon piled on. In the face of public backlash, the program ended in December 1944.

“If ever there was a doubt in anyone’s mind that women can become skillful pilots, the WASP have dispelled that doubt,” Arnold told the last WASP school graduates on Dec. 7, 1944.

The Air Force did not allow female pilots until 1976. In 1977, WASP members received retroactive military status.

After the war, Cochran turned her attention back to civil flight and attempted to set more records, which she did in 1961 at the age of 55 in the T-38 that will now be on display.

A T-38 Talon flown by Jacqueline “Jackie” Cochran is displayed at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Staff photo by Chris Gordon.

“Her goal that at that point was to set these records,” Cochrane said. “The T-38 was what she chose because it’s so fast and nimble.”

Cochran died in 1980 as a retired Air Force Reserve colonel and a recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

“When she died, she had more records than any man or woman at the time—speed, altitude, distance,” Cochrane, the curator, said. “Because that’s what she did. She loved speed. She loved to set records.”

Watch, Read: ‘One Team, One Fight: A Force Multiplier’

Oct. 7, 2022

Retired Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Kaleth Wright leads a discussion with Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost, commander of U.S. Transportation Command; Lt. Gen. Richard M. Clark, superintendent of the U.S. Air Force Academy; and Maj. Gen. Edward W. Thomas, commander of the Air Force Recruiting Service on “One Team, One Fight: A Force Multiplier” on Sept. 20, 2022, at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference. Watch the video or read the transcript below. This transcript is made possible through the sponsorship of JobsOhio.

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Voiceover:

And now please welcome to the podium, the 18th Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, Kaleth Wright.

CMSAF Kaleth Wright, USAF (Ret.):

All right, well good afternoon teammates. It’s good to be back amongst so many familiar faces and even some new faces. Today’s panel is titled, One Team One Fight, A Force Multiplier. So today we’re going to talk a little bit about diversity, equity and inclusion. And so let me begin by introducing our panel members. On my far left, we have Major General Ed Thomas, who is the Commander of Air Force Recruiting Service and he’ll be talking about diversity, equity and inclusion from a recruiting lens.

Maj. Gen. Edward W. Thomas:

Thanks, Chief.

CMSAF Kaleth Wright, USAF (Ret.):

We also have Lieutenant General Rich Clark, who is the Superintendent of the US Air Force Academy and he’ll pick … Okay. Yep. And he’ll pick up the discussion from a developmental and building the force perspective, General Clark.

Lt. Gen. Richard M. Clark:

Thanks sir.

CMSAF Kaleth Wright, USAF (Ret.):

And finally we have General Jackie Van Ovost, who is the Commander of US Transportation Command. And she’ll be making linkages to both the operational and strategic imperatives for having a more diverse and inclusive joint force. I think this promises to be a very informative panel. So thank you all for attending. Let’s start to the discussion with each of our panel members and just providing their perspective. So, General Thomas.

Maj. Gen. Edward W. Thomas:

Hey, Chief Wright. Thanks so much. Pleasure to be here, pleasure to be with you again. One of my wingman and battle buddies here in my last assignment, General Van Ovost and General Clark, humbled to be on the panel with you.

There are so many things that I would love to be able to say about recruiting and how we get after recruiting and diversity, but I’m going to try to keep it brief. Let me start with this. Back in 2017, I was on a trip with the Chief of the Secretary going through the Middle East and we had a New York Times author and columnist, Tom Friedman, that was on the trip with me, I’ve really gotten to know Tom well over the years. And I got to see our Air Force, after at the time having been in it close to 30 years, through just a little bit different lens. And to have this civilian on the trip watching the kind of Airmen that we had all throughout the theater, whether it was Al Udeid or Al Dhafra in Afghanistan or Iraq.

And he was visibly moved and humbled by the kinds of Airmen that we had from all walks of life. And he came out of that trip just a little bit amazed at how they all came together, even as our nation dealt with issues that were divisive, he didn’t see any of that out on the front lines or in the theater. And he compared it to our traditional US motto, “E Pluribus Unum”, out of many, one. And he described these Airmen from all demographics, from all walks of life, how they pulled together and how they made one American clenched fist for the nation. And it was refreshing to me to see our Air Force again through this lens of an outsider and what it meant.

So from my perspective, leading recruiting for our Air Force and our Space Force, let me just real quickly, just give you two whys. The first is, why recruiting? This is the easiest and the simplest. Because I would argue that recruiting the best and the brightest Airmen from around the country is the single most significant factor in combat radius. That’s the first one. Okay. So the one that’s been a little bit harder and it’s been an interesting journey over the past couple years, explaining this to people and helping them understand it is, why diversity? “Okay, recruiting I get, but why does diversity matter?” Well, I’ll tell you in my mind, there there’s two key reasons. Some of this you can look at as idealistic or pragmatic, I think it’s both as the recruiting commander, very pragmatic for me.

Generation Z is the most diverse generation ever in American history. So if we’re going to get after and recruit the best of our citizens from all across the United States, the only way we’re going to be able to do that is to be able to do intensive outreach and be able to connect in meaningful ways with folks from all across America in every demographic. And we have to be deliberate about it. That’s the combat readiness piece of it.

The second piece of it, as we serve, we’re in a military who serves in a democracy. We serve the American people. So from a historical, from a military sociological perspective, if we do not look like the country we serve eventually, including our rated, including our leadership ranks, that’s going to eventually be, that’s going to be a problem. And not only do we risk having the best, most combat ready Airmen, because we’ve truly pulled out and called the best, we also risk a further division in our nation where we’re already struggling with somewhat of a sieve mill gap.

Okay, I’ll just end with this though. The best thing we still have going that excites me every day, that makes me love my job, I’ve got one of the best jobs in the United States Air Force, is we’ve got an unbeatable value proposition. We’ve got an unmatched opportunity for people to come join us, to come be part of something bigger than themselves and be part of that American clenched fist. Back to you Chief.

CMSAF Kaleth Wright, USAF (Ret.):

All right. Thank you, General Thomas. General Clark.

Lt. Gen. Richard M. Clark:

Okay. Well, thank you Ed. And General, it’s so good to be back up here with you as well, two long time friends, real honor. And certainly Chief Kaleth Wright, everybody’s hero. So it’s great to be here. Thank you, Chief.

So from USAFA perspective, diversity and inclusion has to be woven throughout everything that we do and that is an imperative for us. And when we talk about our priorities at the academy, I think that’s probably the best way to share with you just how important it is, not only to us but our Air Force, our Space Force, our country as we’re developing leaders. And our number one priority has always been to develop leaders of character. That’s the number one, that I say, the prime directive of the Air Force Academy.

And when we talk about developing leaders of character, we start with our core values, right? Integrity first, service before self, excellence in all we do. But there’s an ancient Chinese philosopher who really helped us to line this up with a quote that I’m sure many of you are familiar with but it starts with, “Your thoughts become words, your words become actions, your actions become habits, your habits become character and your character’s your destiny.” And we have to start with character.

So when we think about the thoughts and the words of integrity, service and excellence, they lead us to the actions and habits that we want to see from our cadets. So for, when we talk about integrity first, that leads us to honorable living. People that live honorably in everything they do, no matter what it is, where they are, whether someone’s looking or not, they live in an honorable way.

When we talk about service before self, we want to see a leader that lifts other people to be their best possible selves. No matter what they look like. Whether they look like them, come from the same city, country, wherever it is, we want those people to lift everybody else around them, even if it means that they have to sacrifice themselves to be their best possible selves.

And when we talk about excellence in all we do, that’s about elevating our performance. Every day we have to be better today than we were yesterday. And that means that we have to look at our team as a whole and help our teams get better by creative thought, by innovation, by doing the things that diverse teams bring to the fight. And it’s scientifically proven that diverse teams make better decisions, that they can think more creatively and innovatively. So, developing leaders of character is first and foremost, and diversity and inclusion is core to that.

Our second primary, our priority, is to ensure that we are preparing our leaders for future conflict. They have to be able to go out, not just five years from now, but 15 or 25 years from now, to be able to fight and win our wars as warriors. They have to solve problems that we don’t even know about yet. They have to be able to present problems to our adversary that they won’t be able to handle. But in order for us to be able to do that, we have to be able to, just like General Thomas just talked about, we have to be able to glean talent from across our country. We have 435 congressional districts, diverse districts that we have to bring the best of the best in. And it is a strategic imperative for us to be able to do that, to bring them into our academy so that they can be a part of a team that understands what it means to lead into the future.

But here’s the thing, if our cadets don’t understand, if they don’t understand how to lead people that don’t look like them or think like them, our country is only getting more diverse every day. And if we want to fight with 30 or 40% of our population, then let’s keep doing that. But if we want to use 100% of America’s power, then we have to be ready to lead with all of America. If we’re going to defend America, we need to look like America. So that is the number, the second priority that we have to be prepared for future conflict.

And the third one is to inspire a culture of dignity and respect. And that is something that encapsulates everything about diversity and inclusion, but really just about being a leader and about being a great fighting force. And diversity or dignity and respect is something that we instill in our cadets from day one. But I had a video that I wanted to show you, because I could give you a hundred words, but in two minutes I can really show you what we believe about dignity and respect. And I hope that that video is teed up so that we can show it to you. Is that possible? It is.

Video:

We don’t rise every morning and hope to do the same things we did yesterday. We don’t resolve to remain the same. Our minds expand with every person we meet, every place we travel and every time we step outside of our comfort zone. The more we grow, the farther we dare to go. The only question is, how far will that be?

We come to the Air Force Academy because we want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. We want to be challenged like never before. We don’t expect it to be easy, we don’t even want easy. In 1955, Air Force Secretary Harold E. Talbit said, “The academy is a bridge to the future.” This bridge is not laid out in front of us like a red carpet, it’s a long blue line started by the cadets who have come before us. We look to it to see how far we’ve come, but also to acknowledge how much farther we have to go.

As a nation, we’ve always fought for freedom, but we still struggle to guarantee equality. We’ve seen what happens when we fail to listen to each other and worse, when we don’t even try. Our academy is not perfect either.,Our history is proof. Until the seventies, we only had a handful of cadets of color in any class. It took 20 years and a presidential order for us to admit our first woman. Some of us have experienced racism or heard inappropriate jokes in our halls. These failures weaken that long blue line. Where we go from here is up to us, because with every failure there’s opportunity. So let’s take a long hard look at ourselves, have the tough conversations and lead the way. The more willing we are to understand and respect backgrounds and beliefs that are different from our own, the stronger we’ll become. This ideal is not a finish line, it’s a north star we follow.

The faces around here have changed over the years, but our graduates have always inspired others. They have fought bravely in wars, stood on Olympic podiums, served in Congress and flown in space. These achievements are a testament to our own potential and inspire us to aim higher. Soon we will have the opportunity to be the new faces leading the way and they will be the most diverse to date. Some call that progress, but it’s just the beginning, because we can’t represent the best of America if we don’t look like America. We can’t defend the rights of every citizen if we don’t stand up for the rights of our fellow cadets. If one of us is disrespected, we are all disrespected.

The academy is a pillar of leadership. Airman have led our society before and we must lead the way today. We have the power to shape what the Air Force and Space Force become, our fellow Airmen and Guardians are counting on it. It’s an incredible honor, but an even bigger responsibility. The academy helps cadets to live honorably and to become the leaders our country needs. It’s up to us to show the world who that is. We’re taught to always look to the future, but first we need to recognize where we are right now. We can’t move forward without looking at where we stand. So let’s stand for each other before anything else. The more we treat each other with dignity and respect, the higher we’ll rise. They say it’s lonely at the top, but we wouldn’t know because we’re all up here together.

Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost:

Nice.

Lt. Gen. Richard M. Clark:

So I’ll end there, but I just want to say one more time, those priorities, developing leaders of character, preparing for future conflict and inspiring a culture of dignity and respect. Thank you. All right. Ma’am.

Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost:

That’s nice. Yeah. Gerald Clark, Major Thomas, wingmen. And I know you were all here on the late session on a Tuesday to see Kaleth Wright though, and that’s actually why I came as well. So what a great video. I don’t have a video, I have a slide. But first of all, thanks for an opportunity to come up here and talk a little bit about the effects of diversity inclusion to the joint force and frankly to our allies and partners. As I think about lethality, that is the bottom line for diversity, equity and inclusion a lethal, agile and resilient joint force. But a joint force that can manage the strategic environment and these complex situations, as General Clark talked about, that we need all these diverse minds to get after in these diverse experiences.

But I’ll take it a level further because we have to be able to integrate with our allies and partners. If we don’t understand our own culture and our own people and our own development, how is it that we can be that shining beacon on a hill? And how can we better and how we have to do integrated deterrents and increased relationships and interoperability with our allies and partners if we can’t lead ourselves, right? Because they represent those different cultures.

So, I wanted to talk about, throughout histories there are plenty of battles where the military force lost because they did not represent the people, the nation, the tribe that they fought for. And I commend you to a book from Jason Lyle, where he, it was called Divided Armies. And he looked back in the last 200 years on battles around the globe. And what he did, was he linked the citizen status within the nation and in their military to battlefield performance. So it was very interesting and I commend you to read it, but spoiler alert, internal discrimination leads to battlefield defeat. You don’t see any of those results when you have a more inclusive force. So that’s what we want to avoid, is over time if we don’t have that diverse, recruit and train, we could be in for failure into the future. So it is a strategic imperative that we have and raise an army that is reflective of our nation and reflects the core value for which our nation was founded. Around the world we’re looked at to be that beacon and we need to act that way.

So, I want to think about, how is it that, concretely, that we’re watching how diverse and frankly all of our actions we’ve been taking to ensure that diverse communities are more welcome and that we remove friction areas and we have a better understanding of what they’re like when they’re in the force and how we have to develop them. So a couple of [inaudible 00:18:38], we have seen results at the strategic, operational and tactical level.

So I’m going to start with one tactical level from the female side. Lieutenant Colonel Melissa Donbrick, and I think we may have a slide if we could. She’s an OMSAD scholar and she was the first American, much less woman, to graduate from the University of Rabat in Morocco. So courageous to go into that culture and get a master’s degree. She then became the 76 Airlift Squadron Commander. And during her pregnancy she wanted to fly for Operation Allies Refuge. So she sought a waiver and got the waiver to fly. And not only did she fly in and supported the missions, she was also the air boss pulling midnight shifts managing the flow into Ramstein Air Force base. So here we have an Airman that not just provided readiness to her unit, but she provided one heck of example of a leader in a contested environment that’s making a difference.

And speaking of making a difference, on a side note, you should ask her what her experiences were like between her first child and her second child. And between those two times, we instituted a lot of policies to support women and pregnancy and maternity flight suits and hair and fitness that made her experiences completely different. So someone who really can appreciate all of those policies we’ve worked together and that’s just in [inaudible 00:20:12] on the women’s initiative team. But we’re working, [inaudible 00:20:15] analysis working groups all the time and they are making a difference. And I thank all of you have been involved in those.

And now let me talk about at the strategic level. So it’s not just in the Air Force, across the Department of Defense we have a program called Women, Peace and Security and we’ve deployed gendered advisors to support the Afghan refugees flow, really to communicate and support them as they were going through the process. And this program is led by the combatant commands. So we send out officer enlisted leaders to go to different countries to help them understand better how to manage all of their resources and how to be more effective as a team in leadership. And it’s making a difference. We send out from the Air Force and what I do in AMC, they send out MCSs that do that work. But Chad, Ghana, El Salvador, it’s making a huge difference.

Again, it’s American leadership and when we can do it right here, we are that beacon and we can translate and show those policies and show them the way that they can do it. Indeed, we have a very strong program in South America and just last week in Columbia they announced that their next senior enlisted advisor to the chief of defense is a female. That’s a huge step there. And they get support when they see our policies, we do workshops to show them how to fix things, to make a fulfilling career in the military for them, not just with women but all of their minority groups. So it’s really great, it provides us opportunities, again, to thicken those relationships with our allies and partners because they are our strategic advantage.

And just like we want to use a 100% of what is in America, we want to use a 100% of what our allies and partners can bring to the fight every day and it truly makes a difference. So as I think about, it takes this team from recruiting all the way to force development to continued development in your career, to then showing our allies and partners what it is we can do. And that’s the value factor for what we’re talking about. So thanks. Thanks here Wright.

CMSAF Kaleth Wright, USAF (Ret.):

All right, thank you. So General Clark, in the video, amazing video by the way, so thank you for sharing with us. At one point it said, “If one of us is disrespected, we’re all disrespected.” And I was wondering if you could share a personal story of when you were disrespected and how you handled it?

Lt. Gen. Richard M. Clark:

I get disrespected every day, but let me… No, but-

Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost:

Your kids do?

Lt. Gen. Richard M. Clark:

… Yeah. No, my kids are gone, I’m still getting disrespected. But no, I think about Chief, think back to pilot training and there was an incident there that I started out, out of the academy, I had a great team that I was studying with, that we had a study group that we shared. And one night we decided we were just going to take a break, play some cards, hang out a little bit and we were at another guy’s house, one of our fellow students and his wife brought out their dog and the dog’s name was Rudy. And I said, “Hey, why Rudy?” And she goes, “Oh, we named her after Rudy on the Cosby Show.” And one of the guys that was in my study group said, “Rudy, from the Cosby Show, she’s just a ugly old…” N-word. And I was like, “Did he just say that?” And it was, at first it shocked me, but then the next thought that went through my mind was homicide. I was thinking, “I think I have to take action here.”

But I took a breath and I stepped back and I said, “I can’t believe you just said that.” And he said, “Oh, don’t take it so personally.” And of course I was the only black man, only black person sitting around the table and we had a couple words, I won’t repeat them. And then I said, “I have to go.” And I left. And from that point on, I couldn’t be a part of that study group anymore. And that, in the early stages of pilot training is detrimental. But then two of the guys that were sitting around the table came to me later and said, “Hey man, we should have said something there, but we want you to come back into the study group.” And I thought, “I can’t, not while he’s there.” And they said, “He’s not going to be there, but we want you to be there. Come back into the group.” And it just, for them to reach out and pull me back in and to realize the wrong that was done there meant everything to me and I remembered that.

Fast forward to 2003, I’m a Squadron Commander and we deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom, B-One Squadron. And I’m in my tent one day and we had built our crews very deliberately and I had a crew with one of our amazing instructor pilots, I’ll just say her name was Tank, just to keep names out of this. But her name was Tank. Tank was fantastic. And she had a wizo on her crew that was an older guy who I had known for a long time. And one day that wizo came into my tent and he said, “Hey Rich, I can’t fly on this crew. I can’t fly with a woman in combat because I don’t buy into that, I don’t agree with that and I just want you to move me to a different crew.” And I started getting this hot feeling in my head and I’m thinking, “Man, this is going to be my first combat kill because I’m about to do this guy in.”

But then I thought about it and I had two choices. It would’ve been real easy just to move him to another crew and nobody would’ve been, nobody would’ve known. But I think back to those guys that stood up for me when I needed someone to step up and say, “That’s wrong.” And I said, “No man, I’m not moving you off that crew and you have two choices.” I said, “You can either go home with paperwork that describes your dereliction of duty or you can fly the mission as stated. And I will tell you this, that you’re on the crew with Tank for a reason, because she’s going to save your life.” And he said, “Oh. Don’t…” And I said, “No, those are your choices.” And he said, “Well, I didn’t mean for it to get all like that.” And he left and he flew a Tank.

Well, two days later they flew on a mission. And in that mission, first when they took off they had an engine problem, they had to circle back and land the airplane. And while they circled back, Tank arranged for a spare aircraft to be brought up, they left that aircraft that they were in, they moved to a spare aircraft, they took off, they had troops and contact, they delivered their full load of 24 joint direct attack munitions and they probably saved 50 to a hundred lives because there was, during that tick that troops and contact. That crew was decorated and Tank really did probably save, if she didn’t save her crews life, she certainly led to the saving lives of other Americans.

And to his credit though, that wizo came back later and said, “I got to tell you, I was wrong. Tank’s a hero and I’m glad that I was on her crew. That was the best experience I’ve ever had in an airplane and I appreciate it.” To his credit, he realized the err of his ways. But to Tank’s credit, she showed him the err of his ways. And that’s what we need to do, two things. First, we need to stand up for each other, we need to stand up for each other. And I thank those guys that stood up for me to lead me to stand up that day as a Commander. And then, when people don’t want to stand up for us, it’s up to us to show them what we’ve got, as a country, as a force, that diversity does matter and it does help us. So, that was my one example Chief.

CMSAF Kaleth Wright, USAF (Ret.):

Thank you sir for sharing. General Clark was a football player back then and he was probably a lot bigger. So, I’m going to speak for those two guys and say they probably didn’t want that smoke. General Van Ovost, one of the things that we’ve heard and we experienced after the George Floyd incidents was the difficulty for leaders in the Air Force to talk openly about diversity, equity and inclusion issues. What are your thoughts and what ideas do you have on how we can talk openly and candidly about the challenges faced, particularly by minority populations inside the Department of Defense?

Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost:

Yeah, thanks K. Wright. Look, not just after George Floyd, but along the same lines. The Air Force did a lot of soul searching, did a lot of data digging and we had real examples, real data that said we weren’t doing it right. So to the credit and I credit the leadership of the Air Force, first thing they need to do is own it. Own the problem. And that requires a lot of self-reflection, a lot of, “Where was I, when?” But you own the problem. There’s a reality of the data. And then as you… Don’t chip away at it with, “Well, it was the wrong assumption.”, or, “It just was one person on the diox that was mad, everybody else was not.” Take it for face value. Listen for understanding, listen with empathy, hear the stories. And you will find as, even as the first level supervisor, there are things that are not in your wheelhouse, you’re like, “Well, I don’t know how to change that.” But it doesn’t mean that you let it go. You have to elevate it. You have to get everyone involved in what the concerns are with the policy or process or the data and so that you can really bring it up and come up with different solutions.

So you may not own the problem because it could be some sort of corporate promise or some sort of policy problem, but you own the solution. Why do you own the solution and you don’t own the problem? You own the solution, because again, it’s all about readiness, it’s all about taking care of your people. So if we’re going to take care of our people, we’re going to own that problem. And by owning it, I mean again, ring the bell, elevate the problem, let’s have a discussion about it and lay it flat. Because as a commander at any level, it’s terrible to hear something discriminatory that occurred on your squadron that you didn’t know about had been going on for months. That’s happened to me once and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, why didn’t you tell me earlier? Why did we let this propagate? Who walked by this? Who should have known? Who should have acted?” But own it and walk around you own it and listen for empathy.

CMSAF Kaleth Wright, USAF (Ret.):

Thank you ma’am. So General Thomas, you’ve been criticized for-

Maj. Gen. Edward W. Thomas:

A lot.

CMSAF Kaleth Wright, USAF (Ret.):

… for lot, for lot, but specifically by a network anchor, we won’t mention which network for your recruiting, lowering recruiting standards, allegedly and for being too woke when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion. Does recruiting focus on diversity somehow put, weaken the military or put our overall readiness at risk?

Maj. Gen. Edward W. Thomas:

Yeah, thanks for that question Chief. No, look, unconditionally no. Unconditionally no. This is a red herring, it’s a distraction. To just give plain Aggie speak here. At the end of the day, our job is to be prepared to kill bad people and tear up their stuff. War fighting has got to be and is mission number one. So just briefly, here’s how I explain it because this is the part that really just kind of rubs me wrong. Is people, when I said this has been a bit of a journey explaining diversity, because here’s what people hear sometimes. “Hey, we’re really thinking through diversity, how we’re a diverse force, how we draw the best.” Here’s what they hear, “You want to drop standards. You just want to put quotas out there so you have different flavors of people in our Air Force.” That is so absolutely wrong.

There’s two main things we do in recruiting. We attract and we select. Picture this, this big circle, attract. We go and we throw a wide net out across America. We want them to be part of us, like a football team, like any athletic organization. “Hey, come try out for the team. Think about wearing our jersey.” But then, we select the best athlete, who throws the furthest, hits the hardest, because that’s what our organization is about. And these Airmen out in uniform today, they’re here because they made the team not because of any other reason. And we’ve got to make sure people understand that piece. So thanks for the questions Chief.

CMSAF Kaleth Wright, USAF (Ret.):

Thank you. Thank you, sir. All right. We’re getting close to our time, but General Van Ovost, I wonder if you can talk a little bit about any positive steps that the Department of Defense and the Air Force has taken to incentivize women to continue to serve in the military?

Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost:

Yeah. First of all, I’m proud of everyone that’s working on our bear analysis working groups, whether it’s Indian American, the Heat, our Hispanic team, the wit, they’re making real strides in both major policy changes and just getting rid of some irritants that don’t allow us to really serve and get that fulfilling service that we really desired when we joined in the Air Force. I think it makes a difference. I think it makes a retention difference and that turns into a recruiting difference. So congratulations to everyone and keep working. Why? Because our culture continues to change. And Gen Z will bring in some new challenges to what we’re thinking, the next generation will as well. And we should continue to change our policies and procedures to ensure that they can serve at the highest level and give us the very best talent of America.

So between our career and our mission, the pregnancy waivers that we have, our ability to relieve ourselves in flight, it’s an improvement. But the fact that we are investing small resources to ensure that we’re comfortable throughout all phases. And then I think about childcare. It’s hard, it’s Milcon, but I tell you that I appreciate the secretary. He’s been trying to prioritize childcare Milcon and then it’s about getting into and getting more people to take care of the children. So, it’s the people side as well. And so, he’s investing in some of the people side and some contracts.

So that, all the biggest barriers as we grab the information from when people leave the Air Force and grab that information about what were the main determinants or why’d you make these decisions, the flash to bang, on understanding that and then rolling it into one of these work groups and then getting after it. I think we are absolutely leading for the Department of Defense. And again, our work that’s here is not just for America’s military. We are taking this stuff overseas in our Women Peace and Security, not just for women, but for minorities and trying to promulgate that information. So keep at it.

CMSAF Kaleth Wright, USAF (Ret.):

Excellent. All right. That’s about our time today. There’s lots and lots of things that we can discuss in this conversation. I encourage each of you to continue having these tough conversations about diversity, equity and inclusion.

I want to, especially, I want to thank each of the panel members, not just for being here today and sharing some of their personal insights, but for being role models when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion. I had a chance to personally work with each one of them and they practice what they preached. They all had very diverse staffs. They engaged on issues of diversity, equity and inclusion, at least during the time when I was serving, I didn’t see General Clark knock anybody out at the time we were serving. But it does mean a lot. It’s one thing to talk about it and it’s certainly another thing to actually practice it and be role models for all the people who look up to each of you. So thank you once again for being here. Thank all of you for sticking around to hear at least a part of this conversation. And again, I encourage you to continue having the tough conversations around diversity, equity and inclusion. Thank you.

New Mitchell Paper Urges USAF to Involve Operators Early in Collaborative Combat Aircraft Development

Oct. 6, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force should build its capacity and striking power with collaborative combat aircraft but must put the teaming aspect of the new class of weapons first, getting the concepts and software right at the outset to ensure that autonomous airplanes do what’s needed and expected—and can be trusted—a new paper argues.

“The Air Force is not putting sufficient priority on the teaming aspects” of CCAs, said Heather R. Penney of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, author of the new paper “Five Imperatives for Developing Collaborative Combat Aircraft for Teaming Operations.” She told reporters at a preview of the paper that the service is rushing to develop autonomous aircraft technology without an adequate focus on how, specifically, they’ll be used.

The Air Force’s technology enterprise and the defense industry have been preoccupied with “how … you take the human out of the cockpit,” she said, solving problems such as navigation, terrain avoidance, sensor and weapons management, etc.—“decomposing the mission threads into all the tasks” in a fighter mission.

While that’s important, “What’s being neglected is how CCAs are going to team with humans … How do they engage with humans in the battlespace; how do they fly with humans, handle changing scenarios?” she said. That interaction is “critical, because it’s foundational” to making CCAs succeed operationally.

Based on surveys of combat pilots, Penney said they harbor “great skepticism” about whether CCAs can be absorbed into combat formations without creating new problems that will make the fight more difficult. Pilots must be convinced that CCAs will provide a combat benefit, and that can only be accomplished by involving pilots in the development of tactics, techniques, and procedures written into CCA control laws and software.

She acknowledged, however, that the Air Force is short of pilots—particularly pilots of fifth-generation fighters—who could be spared to help develop tactics, techniques, and procedures for CCAs. While the industry is hiring some reservists and former fourth-generation fighter pilots to help in this regard, they may not be fully up to speed on the modern air war.

Still, “a fourth-gen pilot is better than none,” she said. Engineers alone cannot and should not have to guess how to build an easy-to-use, valuable interface for pilots and CCAs.

Penney argued that the Air Force is right to purse CCAs because they offer many advantages and solutions to tough Air Force problems. They address USAF’s need for a quick operating tempo, the ability to mount attacks in mass, “attrition tolerance,” the ability to have a strategic reserve, and operational resilience, and they create operational complexity for the enemy, she said.

Unlike crewed aircraft, if a CCA is shot down, no pilot is lost, and an inexpensive replacement aircraft can be fielded by the same people with no loss of skill. Given that USAF already faces a chronic pilot shortage, this is a major plus, Penney said.

The CCAs must also be autonomous, because relying on remotely piloted aircraft demands numbers of pilots USAF can’t generate.

“A one-to-one ratio” between pilots and CCAs “is not going to meet the needs of what we have to do for the future,” Penney said.

Autonomous aircraft “that outnumber humans in the battlespace” are becoming possible because “the miniaturization … the speed of processing, the advanced software techniques, and the advent of machine learning/deep neural networks, artificial intelligence, and datalinks” have all matured at the same time, she said.

But the ability to adapt to changing conditions and new instructions on the fly will be the discriminator as to whether CCAs really work, she said. Those capabilities must be built in from the start; they cannot be “bolted on afterward.” The software must take a DevSecOps approach and be ready before the CCAs are fielded, Penney argued.

If they’re not, “we won’t get this right,” she said.

Penney also said pilots need to understand how the artificial intelligence in CCAs will behave, so the autonomous aircraft can be trusted. Aircrews must also not be unduly burdened by the task of managing CCAs “without them becoming task saturated.” The preferred approach now—and “the direction industry is leaning in”—is to direct CCAs by voice, Penney said. But that “may or may not be the best way” for pilots to coordinate with the unscrewed aircraft, she said. Multiple means of control may be needed to provide redundancy. It may turn out that the direction is issued in part “by someone on a workstation aboard an E-7” or similar command and control aircraft.

“It’s important that we not split leadership” of combat formations, she said. “But that is something that will only be discovered through experimentation, and with actual flights with actual crews.”

Gen. Mark D. Kelly, head of Air Combat Command, told reporters at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in September that USAF must put the new CCA technology into the hands of the pilots to wring them out and find out what works and what doesn’t, in a rapid series of exercises and iterations. Otherwise, USAF is headed for an “exquisite” failure with CCAs which will require the service to, at great cost, “start over.”

Penney recommended that USAF observe five imperatives for CCA development:

Figure out the best mix of human-CCA teams “based on each teammate’s strengths.” That means leaving humans to apply initiative, experience, and creativity and relying on the machines to do brute-force calculations and other mechanical functions at which they are better than people.
Include operators in CCA development and make sure pilots understand how CCA control laws work, just as they understand how their missiles and other weapons work.
Ensure that warfighters can trust and depend on CCA autonomy.
Ensure that humans can maintain “assured control” over what CCAs do “in highly dynamic operations.”
Ensure that teaming workloads are manageable for the humans.

Penney noted that USAF plans to retire some 500 or so crewed combat aircraft in the coming years, using some of the savings to develop CCAs.

“The Air Force is making big bets on unproven technology” with CCAs, Penney said. And while the new aircraft will go a long way toward fixing USAF’s capacity shortfalls, it’s “an irreversible decision,” so the service “has to get this right.”

Watch, Read: Accelerating Acquisition

Oct. 6, 2022

Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg led a discussion with Andrew Hunter, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology, and logistics and Gen. Duke Z. Richardson, commander of Air Force Materiel Command, on “Accelerating Acquisition” on Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2022, at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference. Watch the video or read the transcript below. This transcript is made possible through the sponsorship of JobsOhio.

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Voiceover:

Ladies and gentlemen, the Executive Vice President of the Air and Space Forces Association, Major General Doug Raaberg.

Moderator: Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):

Thank you, and good morning. The topic of this session is accelerating acquisition. Our Air and Space Forces of today are operating some of the oldest equipment in our history. The forces are smaller and inadequately funded to meet the requirements of the National Security Strategy. For the Air Force, it’s now a balance between capacity and capability to deliver operational capability to the war fighter. Time is not on our side. We must modernize our forces to keep pace with peer adversaries. Accelerating acquisition is key to challenging our strategic competitors. With us this morning is the Honorable Andrew Hunter, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition Technology and Logistics. Please give him a warm welcome.

And in tight formation with him is General Duke Richardson, Commander of Air Force Materiel Command. Welcome.

Gentlemen, set the stage for us. If you think of the Secretary of the Air Force’s Operational Imperatives as the Department of the Air Force’s guide for moving fast in the right direction, and the question is, how are you implementing and institutionalizing the processes in Air Force acquisition? Mr. Hunter?

Hon. Andrew Hunter:

Well, thank you. It’s a real pleasure to be with everyone this morning. I just want to start by saying that I’ve been watching the visual that says, “This is a professional development event for every event,” and it kind of got me thinking that I’ve got to be really professional today in order to live up to that standard. But, the good news is I have, as my partner in this discussion, the premier professional in the acquisition enterprise, Duke Richardson. I’m really pleased to join you, Duke. I think you’ll hear, as we go through this conversation, that we are linked in every way that we can find to be to drive as partners, to lead the acquisition enterprise towards delivering the capabilities that the Force demands that the secretary and the chief have given us the mandate to produce. That really comes down to setting priorities.

My last job in the Department of Defense, prior to having the privilege of coming back to join the Department of the Air Force earlier this year was as the Director of the Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell in OUSD. We were working on operational needs and fulfilling those needs, at the time that I was in the job largely for Iraq and Afghanistan. What I learned from that experience was it was all about setting priorities, and about the senior leadership focus and drive on those priorities that made that effort effective. With the operational imperatives, which have generated a strong sense of urgency for our acquisition community, we’re looking at delivering capabilities in the mid to late 2020s that are critical to success in a high intensity peer-to-peer competition. We know that we need that sense of urgency, that sense of focus, and the ability to prioritize and focus on the most important issues and what we have to deliver to get the job done.

For my part of the acquisition enterprise and AQ, I’ve been working to set priorities, I just want to briefly mention what those are and turn it over to Duke. I think we’re really focused on the discussion part and getting into the Q&A, but let me just let you know how I’ve been thinking through priorities for AQ and for our workforce. I’m working closely with Duke in doing so because I think we can really amplify the effect of our efforts when we’re working closely together. I’ve got sort of three broad areas of priorities that we’re focused on. The first is delivering operational capability to the war fighter. That obviously includes focus on the operational imperatives are absolutely critical and one of the top main thrusts of how we’re going to deliver operational capability to the war fighter. It’s critical to me that we do that in close collaboration with the war fighter, working with our major Combatant Commands to make sure that we understand what their requirements are and that we’re delivering on those and not just taking a path that works for us in the acquisition community.

The second big aspect of this is our nuclear modernization, absolutely critical, and a top mission for our acquisition enterprise, to carry that forward successfully and to sustain the nuclear deterrent as we’re modernizing it. Then, the last is on sustainment of our capabilities because we can’t meaningfully deliver operational capability if it’s not sustainable, ready, and able to go into the fight. My second major focus area is shaping the innovation base for strategic competition, and very much in concert with what the National Offense Strategy and National Security Strategy identify as a strategic competition the United States is engaged in with a pacing competitor in China. I think we have an incredible opportunity in the Department of the Air Force to lead the way in shaping how we prepare for and how we carry out strategic competition, not only in the military sphere but in the economic sphere by working with the innovation base and a wider range of partners.

We’re working there on how we build together our capability development pipelines so that we are effectively leveraging S&T to generate the kinds of technology advances we’re looking for, and at the same time, connecting that to the military capability developments that we’re looking for. We want to expand access to innovative suppliers on the industrial base and work with small businesses and new entrants. We want to protect our supply chains, because again, just like with sustainment, there’s no capability if you can’t sustain it. We’re not going to be able to deliver capability if we can’t make sure that we have resilient and secure supply chains. Then, the last major focus area for me is transforming the acquisition system for the 21st century. How do we make sure that the way in which we go about acquisition is actually fit to purpose for the kinds of capabilities that we have to deliver?

In many cases, they’re incredibly software intensive. They may not lend themselves to the kind of industrial models of acquisition that were the foundation for the acquisition process back in the sixties and seventies, but we have to have different business arrangements and different processes to be successful today, to be much faster, to be more iterative, to be able to deliver increments of capability in weeks and months rather than in years. A big piece of that is the digital thread, something that my predecessor put a lot of effort and great thought into. Duke’s team has a number of major initiatives there with the Digital Transformation Office, and we are absolutely doubling down on those and going to make sure that we carry that out successfully. I look forward to the engaging of the discussion and having a talk about how we can make sure that we focus on our priorities in order to accelerate acquisition.

Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):

Thank you. General Richardson?

Gen. Duke Richardson:

Well, yes, I’m going to echo what Honorable Hunter said. I’m really thrilled to be here. This is a really a fantastic topic. If you do a literature search on it, there’s no shortage of thought, ideas, and studies put into this area. I consider myself a student in this area. I like to read all those studies, in fact, I have a lot of them still, and try to look for themes, what’s changed, what’s different. The world’s different than it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, there’s a lot that’s very similar in terms of how we have to get our job done. I’m really excited to be teaming up with Honorable Hunter. I think having been a PEO for four times, I’m on a different area now and it’s really up to the secretary and Honorable Hunter to kind of determine the ends, in other words the secretary likes to talk about what direction we should be going, and so that’s not my job anymore.

My job is not to determine the strategies and even the priorities for the programs, my job is more of the organized train-and-equip variety, so much like Air Combat Command, we’d organize train-and-equip forces to go off to a Combatant Commander to fight a war. I consider that very similar to what my job is, and that is basically to organize train-and-equip forces, acquisition war fighters if you will, to do Honorable Hunter and Honorable Calvelli’s business, and so that’s really what I’m about. I consider myself more the ways, so Honorable Hunter is the ends, I’m more about the ways. That’s what I’ve been thinking a lot about as I’ve stepped into the job, tomorrow actually marks about 100 days into the work. You can expect Honorable Hunter and I to be partnered very, very closely going forward, and that won’t change. We committed to each other that we would do that, and I think that’s what you’ll expect the whole time that we’re together.

To the question at hand, General Raaberg, back to the studies. Of all the studies, there’s two people that I tend to always go back to, and the first one is General Pawlikowski, and she always talks about you really just need three things. You need a program manager with what she called godlike authorities, and I think she’s really talking about limiting oversight and questions, I guess. Then, the next thing you need is sharp people. The third thing you need is money for risk. That’s an interesting recipe, if you think about it. The program that quickly comes to my mind is B-21. I think the B-21 program has got all three of those elements in it, and heretofore it’s doing pretty well, and so we’re pretty proud of that program. Another one, of course, is I would certainly be remiss if I didn’t talk about Secretary Kendall… he wrote a whole book on it called Getting Defense Acquisition Right.

He talks about four things. He talks about setting reasonable requirements, which for me kind of hearkens back to Kelly Johnson, the father of Skunk Works about hey, each project should probably only have a single miracle, don’t throw two in there. It’s more than just that, it’s other things. The second thing that he said was, “Put professionals in charge,” which is a lot like General Pawlikowski’s one and two. The third thing he said was, “Give them the resources they need,” and I think for me that means the personnel resources, the organized train-and-equip acquisition war fighters that Honorable Hunter needs to be successful. The fourth thing is provide strong incentives for success. I think a lot of folks in the audience will probably think about things like contract incentives, and it certainly does include it, but for me it really is about incentives for the workforce within Air Force Material Command. I’m going to be giving that a lot of thought, about how I incentivize the government workforce, because I know Honorable Hunter will be thinking very much about how to incentivize industry.

But at the end of the day, I start thinking about what is different and what’s not different, and really it comes… there’s a couple things that are just not different and that is the need for a competent workforce. That’s both leadership and the actual workforce below the leadership across all functionals, and I won’t list the functionals, everybody knows what they are, but I’m going to be very focused on that. The second one is this need for systems engineering. Secretary Kendall about that, I mean, the requirement for systems engineering is not going to change, I don’t expect it will, and so we’re going to be pretty focused on that. In a similar fashion that Honorable Hunter just went through his requirements, I’d like to very quickly go through my what I’m calling Four Lines of Effort. The first one is deliver integrated capability, every word is chosen for a reason, especially the word integrated, and so we want to make sure that the work of the six centers that comprise AFMC are integrated across the centers but also inside the centers so that each PEO is not operating like a silo.

Also, it means making sure that the programs that we deliver to Honorable Hunter are also integrated across each other. I think things like ABMS and the announcement of General Cropsey, that will also help in that regard. The second one is strengthening the team. This is where, Honorable Hunter, I really got to double down for you. That is recruit, retain, reward the team and train them. You mentioned digital, and so there’s a very large effort, I hope we can go into that a little bit more later, about what we’re doing to try to make sure the workforce is trained in these new techniques. We do think that digital’s very likely not going to… it probably doesn’t require less people, in fact it might even require a few more people at the beginning. I don’t know that it’s going to save necessarily a lot of money.

I do think it has a real opportunity to accelerate what we do, and not just for the initial delivery but in perpetuity. When we get into the product support aspects of it, if we built that digital foundation, we also think that it will actually allow us to accelerate all along the life cycle, especially as we get into mods and product support. The third one is this idea of revolutionizing our processes. I mentioned part of my job is to organize, train, equip. Organize, train, and equip includes the processes that we use to deliver work on these programs for Honorable Hunter. Revolutionize was chosen for a reason, it was meant to be provocative, to kind of challenge ourself. That’s really where we’re going to dig in deep on this idea of digital material management, and that is where we’re not going to just digitize current processes, we’re going to look at the digital tools to see if we can actually reinvent the processes that we use.

We will always have the process. Systems engineering is not going to go away. [inaudible 00:14:44], those things are not going to go away, but how we do them, using the digital techniques is what’s going to be different. The last one is what I’ll call amplifying a war fighter culture. I’ll use the term engines metaphorically. Engines don’t turn without every AFMC member doing their job, and that’s more of an internal probably thing, just the AFMC, but I want to make sure the AFMC workforce feels very connected to the tip of the spear. Those are the four lines of effort. If you are taking notes on mine and also Honorable Hunter’s, you’ll notice there’s very good alignment on those, and where they’re different, I think it makes sense. My strengthening the team really is his workforce that he’s using, and then he’s got one on the industrial base, and so where they’re different makes complete sense and where they shouldn’t be different, they’re not different.

We’ve been trading these back and forth and so, again, I’ll close just by saying that the teamwork is really super strong. After three months, I’m just really excited to see what we can get done over the next couple years.

Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):

Mr. Hunter, do you want to add to that?

Hon. Andrew Hunter:

Well, I do want to double down on what Duke said about the workforce. Workforce is critical, I actually mistakenly didn’t include that when I talked about transforming. Our third focus area definitely includes a focus on workforce and making sure that the workforce that we have, which is incredible, is fully equipped to carry out this transformation, certainly on the digital piece as well as on the business model, two critical areas where we’ve made a lot of progress and we’ve still got work to do. I do think it’s a key piece, and that the Duke talked about what are we really going to get as an advantage from doing this digital thread, and what I am seeing in our programs that have been implementing this is a much higher degree of maturity earlier in the design process. As we get I think a little further in the discussion talk about how do we make trade-offs so that we can deliver at pace and achieve acceleration, a lot of it is making informed choices. That design maturity is I think a critical enabler.

Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):

I think my next question’s going to pert the ears of industry. You’ve talked about one of the focus areas, your top one there is delivering operational capability to the war fighter or the last tactical mile, putting in operational parlance. But as you both focus on literally digital acquisition, how are you engaging the industry partners and your own workforces to embrace that transformation, especially in digital acquisition?

Hon. Andrew Hunter:

Well, one of the things that strikes me as you look at the operational imperatives is several of them, if not all of them, cut across a whole range of stove pipes. We’ve developed a system which is highly specialized and it has stove pipes, and in some cases for a reason. You build up the expertise in a sophisticated aircraft design, sophisticated weapons developed, in sophisticated mobility solutions and you leverage that expertise and you create a center or PEO and someone that really is able to leverage that expertise, get the best evidence for you, work with the suppliers, many of whom we know well and know us well. There’s power in that, right? There’s a reason why our system has operated that way, and it’s been very successful. But when you look at the OIs, they really force us to cut across those stove pipes.

The premier example is the one the secretary discussed yesterday, which is C3 Battle Management. It touches every single system that we operate, across every domain in which we operate. It requires coordination among tens of PEOs and hundreds of program managers in order to actually be successful. That kind of organizational complexity is not something that the AQ enterprise was really established or has processes in place to handle. We saw that the secretary identified that problem, it’s a very significant problem, so it’s a technical problem of how do we set standards and interfaces, and then there’s the organizational problem of how do you create the institution that’s capable of developing those standards but also distributing them across the entire enterprise, and if you will, enforcing them? Then, how do we support that PEO in being successful in carrying out the direction across all the elements of the acquisition process to include requirements in budget, none of which are under any one single entity below the level of the secretary?

It takes that top-down leadership focus, which I think self evidently from the remarks that we heard yesterday that we have, and which I’m committed to working on with Duke, with Frank Calvelli, with the CFT and others to make sure that we are able to not just admire that problem of organizational complexity, but manage it, tackle it, and overcome it. To me, that is really illustrative. There’s a reason why that announcement was the announcement for AFA because it is an example of us committing to tackle a really challenging problem, one that we haven’t always succeeded in solving in the past, in fact, our track record there is not sterling, but this time we’re going to take different approaches to get after it, and likewise with industry… Here’s the connection to your question. Likewise with industry, the traditional model is, okay, we’ll pick a prime, we will operate on the assumption that we’ve got primes who can solve the problem that we’re asking them to solve.

I think the record shows that when it comes to some of these problems of enormous technical and organizational complexity, they’re bigger than one company can really address on its own, and so you need a team approach. That’s how we’re approaching several of these initiatives, including C3 Battle Management is we are definitely going to be looking for expertise, we are looking for industry partners who can manage large parts of the problem, who can integrate, who understand systems engineering, who have systems engineering expertise, we need that. But, I don’t believe there’s any single company that has everything that we’re going to need to be successful, and almost by definition there isn’t, and so we’re approaching it with that idea of building an industry team to support our efforts.

Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):

Especially in a family of systems acquisition environment. General Richardson?

Gen. Duke Richardson:

Honorable Hunter just said something interesting about how the OIs are really crosscutting. He mentioned the C3BM, certainly is a… I mean, that one’s clearly a cross-cutter, but really all of them crosscut. Back to focus…by the way, I don’t know if everybody picked up on it, but the first priority that we both have is deliver… I don’t know if anybody noticed that, but that wasn’t by accident. We know that our job is to actually deliver, and so that’s why that’s the very first thing. Going back to the integrated, we’ve got to work towards getting the work of the PEOs integrated across all of them. We can’t have exquisite stove pipe systems that don’t talk to each other anymore, so that’s why we’re also focused on enterprise solutions. Really, there’s a lot of buzzwords I guess that roll through my head daily, but integrated is certainly one of them, and enterprise solutions is one.

But, to answer your question about what we’re doing with industry, I go back to what General Brown said on the stage yesterday about Mission Command. What I’m trying to do is provide Commanders intent to all 89,000 people that comprise the Air Force Material Command, give them the tools that they need to be successful, tools and training, not just… I’ll talk about tools in a second, and then just stay at it with a steady drum beat. I think where I spend my time is going to tell them where my priorities lie, and so I want to make sure that I focus my time, there’s only so much of it, in this space, and then try to limit the amount of distractions that I get. I think that’s where the workforce will end up spending their time.

The workforce, I think that commander’s intent, giving them the tools and training, and then empowering them, that’s really what the chief’s talking about with Action Order B. Not just empowering them, but equipping them so that they can be empowered. The tools and training, there’s an overlap here between we’re setting up… by the way, this work is not finished. We have a long way to go. We’ve got a digital guide website where we’re sort of parking a lot of the stuff, the workforce is getting up to speed on some of the tools. I won’t go through all the class of tools, but suffice to say there’s a bunch of them. Honorable Hunter mandated one tool, and I think that’s all he’s going to mandate. It’s called Team Center, it’s the product cycle management tool, and it really for me is the quarterback. That’s kind of where we’re going to house a lot of the data, including things that might have intellectual property stamped on them. We’ll have to come up with ways of making sure that we can protect that intellectual property at the correct boundary.

When we queried industry on this topic, it turned out that they each kind of use a different set of tools, and so we decided maybe it wasn’t smart to mandate a set of tools. We’re kind of working through that right now, sort of prime by prime to figure out how to make that work. At the end of the day, back to my job, organized, train, equip, these things have to get placed into requests for information, requests for proposals, model contracts. They’ve got to get into contractual vehicles so that we’re clear and we’re not just doing happy-talk, and so that work’s also going on. We’ve made a lot of good headway. I should say, we’ve got some Pathfinder programs out there that are kind of doing it on their own. I think that’s great at first because they’re leading the way, so think about NGAD, GBSD, even B-52 Serb. We’ve got a bunch of Pathfinders out there, and I think what we need to do is kind of look at the work they’re doing and get the best of breeds.

You’re seeing that PO Weapons, General Bartolome is doing that down at Eggland with this weapon open system architecture, and so now we’re coming up with ways of, hey, if you’re going to build a new munition, it has to be WOSA compliant. When we’re in source selection, we’re actually going to evaluate how open it is and you’re going to get graded on it. To answer your question, we need to continue collaborating and teaming with the industry and then we need to actually inculcate these ideas into the contractual and the business processes that we use. I will tell you, if you’re a senior leader out there, I am not an expert on digital material management. I am also a student, so I am working to learn as well. It’s incumbent upon… the younger folks in Air Force Material Command are super duper excited about this. Folks at the higher level, like myself, are super duper excited about it.

But, we got to get what I consider the enabling level of leadership, all the folks kind of in the middle. You might call them middle managers, to me they’re the enabling levels of leadership. We’ve got to get them super excited, and I think then we’re going to be cooking with gas.

Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):

Can I ask just more of a side question because both of you are starting out together, this is an incredible relationship and a real fighting team, but I’m going to touch on amplifying the war fire, your culture, because you both are now developing the culture of acquisition for the war fighter, especially as the Department of Air Force is enforced provider to the Combatant Commanders, and all I can see is from conventional to nuclear, you have a big job. The real question is just in the initial phase, are there opportunities you’ve seen already just in going through the enterprise with your focus areas themselves, those opportunities that presented themselves?

Hon. Andrew Hunter:

Well, I’ve been enormously impressed by the professionalism, the skill, the knowledge of the workforce that is here. I’ve been just absolutely delighted to be able to come in and lead this group. It is phenomenal. As Duke mentioned, we do have Pathfinder programs that have been out there literally forging the path on how do we actually do a business arrangement with industry that brings in both traditional primes and tech companies, non-traditional, small business who each bring their unique skillset and we can get them engaged in a high-end aircraft design problem, which historically we would’ve said, “Hey, let’s get the two or maybe three companies capable of building such an airplane together and we’ll have a competition, we’ll pick one, and then we’ll give them the development resources to go build the airplane.” A fundamentally different approach, and that is something that was designed by the team that we have is being executed, they’ve got digital thread, they’re out there absolutely making it happen on a daily basis.

Then, as people who have been engaged in that effort, reach the point in their career where they’re ready to take on more responsibility, we can take those folks who’ve seen how this can be done, how it works, and make them program manager in a different area, they can spread that knowledge. Others can come in, see the program, and bring that back to their program. I talked to some of our material leaders I think last week and said that all of you talking to each other is probably the biggest single thing that we can have to help our enterprise move forward on these things, so all of that’s in place.

I really see my job is to come in and be, as Duke said, be the enabler at my level, hopefully I can be the senior level enabler and make the connections to the secretary, to the chiefs to get whatever direction, whatever authorities that we need… in most cases, the authorities reside at the assistant secretary level, I can execute them, sometimes we need a little help on things like… well, I wasn’t able to create a new PEO all by myself, I needed the secretary’s help, I needed Duke’s help to make that happen. That’s what we can bring to the table. I think the team is ready to go, they’ve got the right skillsets and they’re motivated, and it’s really incumbent on us as I see it to bring what they need to make them successful at it.

Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):

That’s insightful. General Richardson?

Gen. Duke Richardson:

I would answer that question in two ways. The first one is I think the obvious way, and so we talk about the collaborative combat aircraft, a huge opportunity. I mean, it goes without saying. Not only will we apply digital material management techniques to that program from the very start, but in terms of how we… I mean, just across the board, across all the centers, how we test it. I think that’s pretty pervasive. But then, the interconnectedness of the CCA, so for that construct to be successful, it really goes back to this whole C3BM thing, all this stuff. The environment that we’re in now and going forward, we cannot afford cylinders of excellence anymore, and so rather than each PEO optimizing a single system and basically cutting off all barnacles, they’re going to be connected. I do think that we can optimize the whole, but it might mean that we have to maybe sub-optimize certain capabilities because certain capabilities can’t work on their own anymore, and the secretary’s made that crystal clear.

The second way I would answer that is that when I look at all six centers that comprise Air Force Material Command, huge opportunities. If you look at what’s happening in the lab, we’re applying digital to all six centers, even installation and mission support center. We’re making a digital twin out of tindle as we rebuild it, so this cuts across everything. The sustainment center, the way we do heavy maintenance in our three organic depots using digital workflow techniques. We have a long way to go, digital depots is part of our long term strategy for the depots. Clearly, it applies to LCMC and Nuclear Weapons Center. Test center, the same thing, we’re doing a lot of work to figure out how to… one example that I would give you is this thing called the Joint Simulation Environment, which we started that program because it really has… it’s needed to essentially finish IOT&E for the F-35.

What we’re learning is that it has applicability much beyond F-35 and we’re starting to look at that could be used for development tests for other programs, and so you can kind of see the Air Force Test Center is really going down this road as well, not just that but training. The JSE has got huge training benefit to it. Then of course, I guess the trifecta would be capability development. When we start, I don’t know what OIs are coming, I don’t know what subset OIs are coming, but the ability to use that tool as a way to basically model and simulate ideas I think is going to be very powerful. Opportunities abound, Doug, I mean, I don’t know there’s a shortage of opportunities here. Back to Honorable Hunter’s point, I think our challenge is going to be the priorities. We’ve got to not get distracted by all those opportunities and try to figure out which ones we really want to get after.

Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):

Fast question, the secretary started off yesterday morning, he said, “China, China, China.” With China’s seeming ability to move faster in the innovation and technology realm, how are you both better connecting your S&T or science and technology efforts to war fighter needs and ensuring you can meet emerging requirements? Mr. Hunter?

Hon. Andrew Hunter:

There’s no doubt that China has moved incredibly fast in a number of areas, and honestly it’s quite impressive and daunting that when we say that China’s the pacing threat, the pace is fast. Having said that, their requirements are not our requirements, they’re fundamentally different problem sets that they’re forced to have to solve, and then there’s others that we’re forced to have to solve. We obviously are focusing on what our requirement sets are and then working fast and hard to get after those as fast as we can. I think the OIs created the infrastructure to allow us to do that because when you focus on a specific operational problem, I think it enables you to do that prioritization when it comes to setting requirements. The secretary has said, “The timeframes that we have to deliver capability by are really short, so we have to be willing to take risk.”

But as Duke said, you want to be judicious in taking risk, you don’t want to bet on we can achieve three miracles, maybe you pick one. I just think this construct gives us the disciplined approach that will allow us to make those good trade-offs. Then, as much as anything, it’s the process. It’s the way in which the OIs were formulated with the requirements community and the acquisition community doing kind of, if you will, the initial scene setting, and then we engaged the resource community at the same time to make sure that we would be resourced appropriately to achieve these initiatives. Incredible work’s done, it’s really set the stage for us and created the right framework, but it’s yet another task to turn that into programs, into programmatics. Saying we’ve generally got the right requirement, which I think is correct, now we’ve got to say, “How do we turn that into a technical specification that we can send to industry and get bids on, evaluate those, determine risk, make good choices in setting our specs and then in managing programs?”

We’re going to have to keep that collaborative approach. I think being very closely linked with the requirements community, with the MAJCOMs every step of this process, because in some cases the risk may be that maybe we’ll bet on a second miracle and just say that the payoff will be so huge, if we succeed then it’s worth taking what would be a substantial risk. In other cases, the risk may be ultimately the OI may have originally envisioned one kind of a capability, but as we get into it, we say, “We only want one miracle here because we got to have something,” and so in order to deliver on time, we may not do everything that was originally envisioned, but we’ll work closely if we were to make such a choice with our operators to make sure that’s the right choice and that we can still close the mission threat.

Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):

General Richardson, what message would you hand your counterpart?

Gen. Duke Richardson:

You talked about the S&T here. General Pringle… I got to give a shout out to General Pringle, our lab commander, doing really great work and leading a fantastic team. She’s just an authentic leader and is very quick to always give credit to her lab for the work that they do. We’ve got three processes. I know process is kind of like a dirty word, process. But, we got three that I think are worth highlighting very quickly. One is called the TASR, Technology Acquisition Sustainment Review. Honorable Hunter, myself, and the MAJCOM Commander meet once a year. We do that for each MAJCOM where we actually go through technology acquisition, IE acquisition programs of record, and then sustainment, the product support aspect. We go through that once a year. That’s one thing that’s worth mentioning.

General Pringle at the lab has created this process called the war tech process, where we team up war fighters, technologists, and PEOs to get after problems and things that we should be looking at. That process has spawned a whole bunch of laboratory work. It’s also spawned some OI recommendations, not all of them, but some of them. I think that’s working really well. The third thing I would mention is we have an experimentation and prototyping campaign where we get together with A5, S5, AQ, SQ, where we talk about how to spend… we have a whole separate pot of money for experimentation and prototyping, what projects to go after that would inform an OI, and so that work’s been going on. Those are the three things that we are doing now. This is a very long topic, so I’ll probably have to stop because we’re going to run out of time.

But suffice to say, I think General Pringle’s got the lab oriented… historically the lab was really… tech directors, for example, the Air Vehicle Directorate, which is really good domain expertise. She has created… I approved it, she recommended it, I got to approve it I’ll say, this Integrated capabilities director where it is really a cross cutter organization that’s led by Mr. Chris Ristech to look across all the tech directorates to inform and be very closely linked to the war fighter to make sure the lab, our S&T work is directly linked to the war fighter. I gave you three processes and then a little bit of a reorganization within the lab, which you may have picked up on, we announced it last month, but it’s pretty major.

Hon. Andrew Hunter:

I’ll just double tap on that.

Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):

Absolutely.

Hon. Andrew Hunter:

There’s a buried success story in the operational imperatives, which is when we went out and surveyed the landscape for what were the things we could quickly bring to bear to solve these operational problems, we found a lot of technology that AFRL had been working on that was ready to harvest. I think I want to mention that. The other related piece is we also found technology that had been developed by other countries, think of the E-7 here, which we could quickly acquire. We found technologies that were available in the commercial realm. There’s a real success story there and one we want to continue.

Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):

Well gentlemen, we’re down to about two minutes. What final thoughts would you like to leave the audience? Mr. Hunter?

Hon. Andrew Hunter:

Well, let me just kind of return to the theme of prioritization. I think we’ve been talking the happy side of it, all the good things that we’re going to do. I think it’s fair to point out too that prioritization has a flip side of the coin, right? It’s still critical that we divest the things that aren’t fit to fight. We’re going to have to probably be careful about how we apply resources to things that we don’t see as directly relevant to the operational imperatives. That’s a message that I send to my program managers, in some case, I may be managing programs that are not the priority, we still have to do them or we would’ve canceled them, but they’re not going to be the priority. Then, the mission is how do you do what you need to do as efficiently as you possibly can so that you could potentially free up resources for the rest of the enterprise? Success there will translate to, I think, to success in their careers and success for the enterprise.

Gen. Duke Richardson:

I’ll take a page out of that book, and I’ll kind of finish where I started as well. A lot of studies in this area, nothing new under the sun here. How we do it is… I think there’s some new stuff there in terms of digital material management. I think that’s clear. Compute power, the software tools that are available to us, the Cloud allows us to distribute the workforce and work much closer together with our industry partner, that’s never been done before. The basics of systems engineering haven’t changed, and so we’ll do that, but we’re going to do it differently. I want to caution us though. There’s this idea called polarity management. There was a book in 1992, I don’t know if anybody’s heard of it, that I’m reading right now. It’s fascinating. What got me on this is this constant left to right, we take risk, risk averse, fixed price, cost plus, perfect solution, just get it out there.

We tend to ratchet between the two extremes and the book will go through a bunch of these things. If you think about it, it really in a lot of ways captures how we think, “Oh, well we need to do it this way.” The premise of the book really is you have to manage the polarities. In most cases, the answer is not on the poles, it’s somewhere in the middle. That thought runs through my mind because I can tend to be somebody who likes to run to a pole, and so capability versus capacity is another one. Differentiate versus integrate. Specialization versus enterprise. You heard me talk about enterprise, I have a propensity to want to do just that, but there’s going to be times when we will need to specialize. I would just leave the audience with, this is complex stuff, there’s probably not a simple answer. If you think you’re going to run to a pole, you’re probably not going to be able to do that because then two years from now you’ll run to the other pole.

I think it’s going to require all of us to be a little deeper in our thinking and explore these ideas. I’m really excited to lead the women and men of Air Force Material Command across all six centers. We have these six centers that are purpose built. I think they’re built for this task. I hope it’s clear that Honorable Hunter and I, and Honorable Calvelli, to the extent that we’re able to and we overlap to partner, to team, and to get after this for our nation, because at the end of the day, it’s not about any single individual or organization, it’s about our nation. That’s what excites me.

Maj. Gen. Doug Raaberg, USAF (Ret.):

Teamwork starts with the leaders, and you both demonstrate a very, very close coordination and formation. Again, thank you for your leadership. It has been absolutely incredible to hear your thoughts and share your insights this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, please give them a warm hand.

To Deter China, Pentagon Must ‘Marry’ New Tech With Legacy Systems, Flournoy Says

Oct. 6, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

As the Pentagon looks to deter China in the coming years, officials need to find ways to make new technologies and existing systems work together to build capacity, former Defense Department policy chief Michèle Flournoy said Oct. 6.

In particular, Flournoy—a defense analyst who served as undersecretary of defense for policy from 2009 to 2012—touted the concept of manned-unmanned teaming as especially promising during a livestreamed fireside chat with the Atlantic Council about deterring China through the 2020s.

Manned-unmanned teaming is a technology area the Air Force has been pursuing for several years, a pursuit that’s heated up recently as Secretary Frank Kendall has pushed for cheap, autonomous drones to fly alongside fighters, an effort that has been dubbed collaborative combat aircraft.

Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. has also said such drones, which could carry sensors, weapons, and pods to disaggregate and complement manned platforms’ capabilities, aren’t intended to only pair with the Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance fighter.

“We want to not constrain ourselves and say it’s tied to NGAD,” Brown said this August, but “how do we look at it from a broader perspective?” Other potential platforms include the F-35, F-15EX, E-7, and KC-46.

Such an approach would seemingly complement an issue Flournoy identified in her remarks—the need to mesh rapidly developed tech with already-fielded systems.

“A lot of people … kind of create a false trade-off, I think, between, we’re either going to divest of all of our legacy systems and create all these new capabilities,” Flournoy said, or just keep only legacy systems. “And the answer is that’s wrong. We are going to have a largely legacy force for the foreseeable future. That’s just a fact.”

Working within that reality, the Pentagon must find a way to “marry” those legacy systems “with new technologies and capabilities—some defense, some commercial—that are emerging that give them meaningfully different capabilities,” Flournoy said.

Some of those new technologies are “very mature” and even available “off the shelf,” Flournoy added, pointing to “particularly unmanned systems that can be operated by a manned platform.”

That description seems to mirror the vision Kendall has laid out for collaborative combat aircraft in which a pilot has multiple unmanned “wingmen” and can “be essentially calling plays and employing uncrewed combat aircraft as wingmen in tactically optimized ways,” he has said.

Particularly within the context of deterring China, Flournoy said manned-unmanned teaming could be critical because in “trying to deter or fight in China’s backyard … they will always have a quantitative advantage. Lower-cost drones to pair with manned platforms could close that capacity gap and give the U.S. “greater mass in the near term,” Flournoy said.

The Air Force is aggressively pursuing such a concept—Kendall has said he wants to hold a competition for the CCA program in 2024—and that approach could be needed, depending on China’s strategic considerations for attempting to invade Taiwan, a scenario that could very likely draw the U.S. into a conflict.

Because so much of the Pentagon’s modernization plans focus on fielding capabilities in the 2030s, Chinese president Xi Jinping may decide that if a military confrontation is needed, “maybe there’s a window where it’s better to use force before the Americans and their allies have fully set the region with the right posture and capability mix,” Flournoy said. “Because that would [mean China will] have a better chance of success sooner than later.”

Such a scenario in the mid to late 2020s is a key issue the Pentagon needs to do a better job of preparing for, Flournoy said, starting with putting someone in charge of considering the medium-term outlook.

“The service chiefs have the 2030-and-beyond perspective. The [combatant commanders] have the next-two-or-three-years perspective,” Flournoy said. “There’s no one focused on this problem every day, accountable to the Secretary every day, for making progress in this area. So authorize someone to be in charge.”

In considering that mid-range timeframe, Defense Department leaders need to take an “Apollo 13” approach, Flournoy added—making the best use possible of what they have instead of waiting for future capabilities so that they can “meaningfully enhance deterrence, so that we undermine Xi’s confidence in using force and we avoid the conflict if at all possible.”

There has been plenty of speculation as to whether Xi and China’s calculus for a potential Taiwan invasion has changed after seeing Russia struggle to make gains after its invasion of Ukraine while the U.S. and its partners have banded together. But Flournoy warned against assuming Chinese forces would struggle as much as Russia’s have.

“There’s a temptation because the Chinese military is untested from a combat perspective, to sort of say, well, maybe they’re just as feckless as the Russian forces were. I think that would be a mistake,” Flournoy said. “You know, I don’t think we should say they’re 10 feet tall, [and] they have their own problems and their own challenges, and they are untested. But they’ve also made tremendous strides in the professionalization of the force, particularly over the last decade, and I don’t think we should underestimate them.”

Watch, Read: Families in the Fight! Senior Leadership Perspective

Oct. 6, 2022

Lt. Gen. Caroline M. Miller, Air Force deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel, and services, led a discussion with senior leaders and spouses including Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. and Sharene Brown; Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond and Mollie Raymond; Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass and Rahn Bass; and Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force Roger A. Towberman and Rachel Rush on “Families in the Fight! Senior Leadership Perspective” at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Sept. 21, 2022. Watch the video or read the transcript below. This transcript is made possible through the sponsorship of JobsOhio.

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Lt. Gen. Caroline M. Miller:

Good morning and welcome to the last day of AFA. It’s been a phenomenal conference. I am, as he just said, Lieutenant General Caroline Miller. But it is my honor to be here to moderate today’s Families in the Fight: Senior Leadership Perspective panel. We are asking questions to our Air and Space Force leadership and spouses covering a variety of challenges impacting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. We only have 50 minutes, and it’s going to go quickly, so let’s introduce our panel members for this session.

Voiceover:

Families in the Fight, Senior Leadership Perspective.

General Charles Q. Brown Jr. is the Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force. He is responsible for the organization, training, and equipping of 689,000 active-duty, guard, reserve, and civilian forces serving in the United States and overseas. As a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he is an advisor to the Secretary of Defense, National Security Council, and the president.

Mrs. Sharene Brown was raised in an Air Force family and has accompanied her husband on 20 assignments around the globe. They have two sons who have become wonderful young men. Mrs. Brown is an avid supporter of military families and is committed to improving quality of life within the Department of the Air Force, especially for those in EFMP. This passion led her to create Five & Thrive, an initiative that encourages military families to thrive.

General John W. “Jay” Raymond is the Chief of Space Operations in the United States Space Force. He is responsible for the organization, training, and equipping of all organic and assigned space forces serving in the United States and overseas. As a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he is an advisor to the Secretary of Defense, National Security Council, and the president.

Mrs. Mollie Raymond has traveled all over the world and moved 19 times with her husband as a military spouse. They have raised three amazing children. Mrs. Raymond has long been a champion for military spouses and families, working tirelessly to support them. As the spouse of the first Chief of Space Operations, Mrs. Raymond desires to build a culture of family within the Space Force by promoting family engagements, building connections, and creating a sense of community.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, JoAnne S. Bass serves as the Personal Advisor to the Chief of Staff and Secretary of the Air Force. She advises on all issues regarding welfare, readiness, morale, proper utilization, and progress of more than 600,000 total force Airmen. She represents the highest enlisted level of leadership, providing direction for the enlisted force and representing their interest to the American public and to those in all levels of government.

Mr. Rahn Bass served in the United States Army for 27 years and continues to serve in retirement by volunteering to support service members, their families, and the local community. He is married to Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass. Together they have two children and could not be more proud of the sacrifices their children have made.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force Roger A. Towberman serves as the highest enlisted leader for the United States Space Force. He provides direction for the enlisted force and represents their interest to the American public and to those in all levels of government. Chief Towberman acts as the Personal Advisor to the Chief of Space Operations and Secretary of the Air Force on all issues regarding the welfare, readiness, morale, proper utilization, and development of the United States Space Force.

Mrs. Rachel Rush is a psychiatric registered nurse with specialized experience in adult, adolescent, forensic, and trauma inpatient settings. She is married to Chief Master Sergeant in the Space Force, roger Toberman. Mrs. Rush is committed to working toward a culture of resilience while navigating mental health resources and services. She is both humbled and excited to serve Space Force personnel and their families during this historic transition into a new branch of service.

Lt. Gen. Caroline M. Miller:

All right, let’s give a round of applause for our panel members. OK, we’ll start this off. We’re going to go … I’m going to start with General and Mrs. Brown. With the current trend of inflation in the economy, what resources are available to Airmen, Guardians, and their families to assist with current economic challenges?

CSAF Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.:

Well, first of all, it’s a pleasure to be up here with this distinguished panel. Good to see y’all. I think one of the things I would highlight as I dive into this particular question is there’s a number of things that have happened over the course of the past several years that none of us really predicted. One is a global pandemic that impacted many of us in certain form or fashion, really on housing was one of the key areas, as well. But it’s also the aspect of how inflation has come about very quickly on top of COVID. And so, with that, many of you know, we did make some adjustments to our housing allowance and temporary areas, but we’re all going to see a rise in our housing allowance, a rise basic allowance for subsistance. Also, a rise in our pay raise. But that doesn’t do it all. The other aspect we’re really trying to do is be a little more working with OSD in looking at the local rental markets to have a better sense of how quickly the housing market is changing, so we can have a little bit more adaptable system.

The other piece we’re also looking is, as we’re making adjustments in COLA. The COLA adjustments were made about a year ago, the decision. It’s also impacting at the same time as we’re seeing inflation. So, we’re looking at how we slow that pace down and again, have a more adaptive pace. And then, just this past week, there’s been some engagement within OSD to take a look at, for some of our families, or those at the lower end of the pay scale, a potential for a kind of a one time outlay of money to help support those families to really get them back on track. But it’s something we’re going to have to continue to pay attention to and really engage in, not only hearing from our Airmen and our families, but at the same time, things we can do internal to the Department of the Air Force. But there’s many times, things we’ll have to do within OSD and the Department of Defense to make some of those changes.

Sharene Brown:

He almost forgot me. So, I just wanted to say, in addition to some of those adjustments that are being made at the headquartered level, what we don’t recognize oftentimes is there are a lot of resource and programs that we have that’s currently already in place. Sometimes, we forget that even at our local level at our Military Family Readiness Center, the name has just changed from Airmen and Family to Military Family and Readiness Center, there might be programs and resources that are out there. And I would suggest highly for some of our spouses that are in the crowd and families, think about reaching out to the key spouses that are out there. They might have some ideas as to how to combat some of these challenges that you’re facing because sometimes, the combination of all these things are high stressors. And so, how we react to them can change how we feel emotionally about some of these things.

Reaching out to our key spouses, if you feel like things are affecting your family, there might be programs out there for you to better engage with your kids about how these things are affecting you. You don’t think that they have a ripple effect, but they really do. The stressors as to how you engage, maybe that’s an opportunity for us to go look at that spouse resiliency page that’s on the website on the airforce.mil website. Take a look at some of those things that might be able to help you. Yes, I realize in the moment, the housing crisis, the inflation that’s going on, they have a toll on us. The other thing is we have key spouses that are out there. You just don’t know what kind of programs they might have available to be able to contact them, get in touch with them. They may be trying to reach out to you.

So, as you think about these things, there are ripple effects that happen as a result of this. And we don’t want this to really affect you, but we do have the programs that are available, and if you could just reach out to different people, the key spouses, maybe even the resiliency page, finding out what kinds of things might be able to help you feel like you can take this all in with a little bit of stride, then I think we’ll be a little bit better for that. Because as you know, sometimes this is a rollercoaster ride. We don’t know what kinds of things are going to be happening down the road, and we want to be better prepared as we go forward. So, with that, I’ll turn the mic back over.

Lt. Gen. Caroline M. Miller:

Thank you. Just a real quick follow on. What resources are available both off and on the installation for childcare?

Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr:

Well, for childcare, this is an area that we’ve heard loud and clear from our Airmen and families on providing childcare. It has been a challenge. And it’s not only what we do on our brick and mortar, actually having the facility, but it’s also the aspect of actually having qualified talent that wants to work in our childcare facility. One of the things that we did was took a look at the wages across the board for childcare providers that work in our child development centers and got that to a level of about $15 an hour, if I have that number correct. But it really matches up against what’s happening in the community. At the same time, it’s our home care program, as well. It’s childcare in your neighborhood. Also, being able to share a childcare spot, as well. And the last piece is really working with our community, as well.

And there’s also the money we put into fee assistance and that was a lot of our Airmen and families have taken advantage of that fee assistance program to help defray the cost, particularly if they’re off base because, as was talked about on one of the panels in yesterday, about 70% of our Airmen and Guardians and families do not live on base. And so, it may not be convenient, depending on who’s dropping off the kids, to go back to the base. Maybe better to do that in the community. And this is why we really appreciate the work from our civic leaders to help us focus on childcare in the community.

Sharene Brown:

Okay. I’ll hold it up a little bit. So, I just wanted to highlight, we have several programs, and believe it or not, we have, for Molly and I, we have the opportunity to sit down with our child and youth programs director. And we often have the opportunity to come back, and we go on base visits and go out and share with, or at least listen to some of our families when we’re out on visits with our other halves. We hear some of the issues and challenges that are out there, but the child and youth program director is trying very, very hard to provide the programs so that we can better serve our communities. Let me just highlight just a couple of programs that we have out there currently. There’s the Kinderspot app. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but this is an opportunity that if members are not using their week let’s say, or a couple of days, then you might be able… They’ll kind of advertise. It’s an opportunity to sublet their spot at the CDC.

And so, you can do this and it’s an app that’s out there now, but it’s a pilot program. And so, here, let me give you the list of locations. There’s nine. They’re trying to expand it to 15. So Luke, Davis-Mothan, Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, Andrews, MacDill, Malmstrom, Maxwell, and Peterson. Schriever is also included in that. So, this is an opportunity if you want to be able to take advantage of maybe the spot, and the rates that you would pay are equal to what your particular rank would be. So, it’s an opportunity to be able to use that. Part of the reason it’s in the pilot program is they want to be able to secure the information that’s on those sites.

A while back on this panel, I heard Jeff Bezos say a thing, a quote, I think that followed the military where it’s, “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.” So, bear with us as we kind of roll this program out because we want it to be in the right direction and not have to go back and reiterate or make changes to it so that it will be correct.

The other program I wanted to tell you about is the in-home childcare, which is the program where you could hire a nanny to come into your home. And that, also, is a pilot program. And right now it’s located in five locations, Hawaii, the NCR, National Capital Region, Norfolk, San Antonio, and San Diego. Again, it’s a pilot program. They’re trying to stand it up. There’s a couple, mil-to-mil, who are working this program so that they can make it a little bit more accessible and help you understand how it works. There’s a lot of initiative on your end in order to find that nanny and bring it in, but this couple that’s working it happens to be Space Force and has children of their own, and they’ve been through this several times, so they want to make it easier for you.

So, we are working the programs. Just so that you know, there’s also an incentive-based program that they’ve given to all the different childcare programs, CDCs, where they can use the funds themselves for [inaudible 00:13:58]. You all know that in different locations, the problems are different. So, how they tackle this in each individual region, or at least CDC, is up to that particular flight chief for that. So, we’re trying to find different ways to be able to approach this, but it is difficult. It is challenging. So, I hope that is at least helpful to be able to use some of the resources that are out there. Thank you.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass:

Ms. Brown, if I could add. I’m going to give a shout out because that Kinderspot app that you talked about was actually developed by one of our very own majors, so kudos to our Airmen who are out there developing some of these apps for us.

Sharene Brown:

Thank you.

Lt. Gen. Caroline M. Miller:

Mrs. Raymond, this question’s for you. At the end … Oh, don’t worry sir, I’ve got one for you, too. At the end of 35 years of active service, what advice would you give to new Guardians and their spouses?

Mollie Raymond:

Thank you. Thank you for the question. First, I’d just like to say thank you to Air & Space Forces Association for the inclusion of spouses in attendance and virtually. And welcome, spouses. Thank you for that opportunity. And yes, I can’t believe 35 years as a military spouse and almost 39 years for Jay. And it’s been a great, great life. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I do have some nuggets of advice, but I’ll stick to just three ideas that I would like to share today.

And the first is to know your resources. And life, as Sharene mentioned, military life can have many, many challenges, but there’s help for you. I always, every time we moved, went to the Military and Family Readiness Center and attended Heart Link. And yes, do it at every location because you’re going to build your network of support that way. You’ll learn the who the subject matter experts are. And then, you can also help other people to know who they are. And there’s so many wonderful programs there. There’s employment assistance. There’s transition assistance, relocation assistance, military and family life consultants, and financial readiness consultants who can help you do a personalized budget. I mean, there’s so many things there. Heart Link is awesome, especially I like to recommend that for our inner service guardian spouses so that they can learn what resources are available within the Department of the Air Force.

Second nugget would be to embrace change. I have to admit, I complained a lot at the beginning of many of our moves. I grew up same home, never moved, had never had to transition and build my life over continually. But when I learned to embrace change, embrace new locations, there’s always new opportunities. And I firmly believe, as far as our children, we really struggle with a lot during the years. But they’re young adults now. I believe they’re the product of the experiences that they had and the people that they met. And I couldn’t be more prouder of their resilience and their worldly views that they can contribute in their workplace right now and their compassion. So, embrace change.

And then finally, one of the core values for the United States Space Force is connection. And it is so important to connect where you are in your units, connect with your Guardians, connect with your Airmen, show up to retirements, show up to promotions, host a potluck, go to potlucks, go to a 5K run. It’s how you make your life fun and enjoyable, and it’s how you get support, and then how you can offer support.

I want to share a quick little story. This summer Jay and I had the privilege to attend BMT graduation. And it was the first graduating flight of Guardians. The only Guardians in the flight. And we were standing taking pictures afterwards with the family and, excuse me, their daughter was just graduating from BMT as a new guardian, had just graduated from high school a few months prior. And we were standing, had pictures with her family, and her little brother was probably about 10. And after the picture, he looked up at Jay and said, “Please take care of my sister.”

So, think of your Guardians that you work with, your Airmen that you work with as your sister, your brother. We have the opportunity, and you can think of Jay and I as your grandma and your grandpa. It is what it is. But we have, in the Space force, this opportunity with our size to build and cultivate that family-like culture. And it’s an opportunity of a lifetime, and it’s a privilege of a lifetime. So, thank you.

CSO Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond:

Thanks, Grandma.

Lt. Gen. Caroline M. Miller:

All right, Chief Bass and Mr. Bass. A constant challenge for Airmen and Guardians are the deployments. What advice can you give to families to help in support in keeping them connected during deployments?

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass:

Well, we are not your grandma and grandpas. Just put it out there right now. I still feel young, Ms. Raymond. I still feel young. I’m going to turn the mic over to my husband, Ron, since you might have thought about this a little bit more, only because, right, you’ve done five one-year deployments in the Army, five one-year deployments, folks. And then, certainly when I was deployed, you were raising our two girls, and they had ponytails on all sides of their heads. And I had to learn to be okay with that. And I had to learn to see that you guys ate at Pizza Hut quite a bit because I saw that on USAA. But while I think about this question, because I was still thinking about grandma and grandpa, I’m going to turn the mic over to you, and then I’ll figure something out really clever. Okay?

Rahn Bass:

Right. So, staying connected. Staying connected with your community, but staying connected as a family, I think, is more important. And I think it just requires that honest conversation with your significant other and really knowing that individual because when you deploy, if there are kids in the house, that service member that’s deploying, hey, you are the relief when you come home from work. So, I think you just have to really, really sit down and have that conversation, know everyone’s strengths and weaknesses.

If you do have school-aged kids, you need to understand, and I don’t want to steal anybody’s thunder, but you really do need to understand the school liaison officers. You really do need to engage the military family and life counselors because if you have kids, it’s not only impacting the spouse, but it’s impacting the kids, as well. We were very fortunate when we were in Mississippi to have a very active military family life counselor engage me the first day of school, engage my daughter throughout the school year. As a first sergeant, I’ve always talked about them and shared that info with my service members and their families, but to actually sit there and have one present and show up and actually doing the things that they’re supposed to do to support our families was huge for us in Mississippi.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass:

But how did we stay connected?

Rahn Bass:

So, we’re a little older, not quite grandparents, but when we were down range, we were able to do videos. We were able to read stories to the kids, share those things, but more importantly, just talk about our days because it’s Groundhog Day, really on both sides. There’s the mission down there, and then there’s the life back here. So, sharing those things. But I would have to say, I’m going to go back to a statement she made earlier about us deploying. And I had the little girls, and unfortunately, I just don’t know how to do hair. But there were some strong people in our community, in our church, that I was humble enough when they offered to take them up on that to even have a… Because we have two daughters. So, to even have a girl’s day, things that I can’t do. So, I really enjoyed that. That was huge, honestly. And it was always right on time when I was about ready, tapped out, you get these offers. So, it was awesome.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass:

Absolutely. We were talking about, last night, how do we stay connected? Today’s generation has a little bit of an easier time because when we deployed earlier, we didn’t have FaceTime. It’s fascinating because we can’t see y’all, just so you know that. The lights in our faces. But I mean, how many of y’all remember the days where you had to go and wait outside of… There’s like one phone booth, right?

Audience:

Yeah.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass:

You had 10 minutes per phone call, and you were waiting on the other person to move out. We didn’t have that. But there are so many resources available to his point, right, with it, for the person who’s back home, but also to down range. I remember the USO. I’m a big fan of the USO. And we always used to take opportunities to do videos to connect with our families. And I’ll never forget. You used to do videos and read to our kiddos, and it was pretty fun for me to then play the video and let our kiddos read it with the book. And you never quite said the words right. And I could see that on the video. And I’d be like, “I’m not going to tell my kids. They know that Dad’s a rockstar.” But anyway, there’s lots of ways to stay connected. Count on your neighbors. Count on your community. Count on your coworkers. And that is a great way, but never forsake spending that quality time with your significant other.

Lt. Gen. Caroline M. Miller:

Thank you. Thank you. All right, Chief Towberman and Ms. Rush. You both have a positive reputation for taking care of people. How do you balance that commitment with Rachel’s career and your relationship?

Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force Roger A. Towberman:

We’re like the cool aunt and uncle by the way? I just want to point that… It’s pretty obvious. You know the one, right? And they go, “Hey, Mom. I want to go hang out with Auntie Rachel.” And Mom’s like, “No. She’s too cool. We’re shutting that down.” I can’t even remember the question. [inaudible 00:25:51]. One, I remember.

Rachel Rush:

Okay.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force Roger A. Towberman:

One, because I was trying to be funny. And two, because I’m in the presence of my beautiful wife, and she makes me speechless. Rachel hates this. There is nothing she hates more than a spotlight in her face.

Rachel Rush:

30 of them.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force Roger A. Towberman:

So, I listen to the wonderful introduction, and I can’t wait for the day when people say I’m the husband of Nurse Rush instead of the other way around. Rachel’s career, the difference that she makes in the world, is easily as important as what I do. And I think that everything we do to navigate this together begins with that understanding and that kind of embracing of that truth. We’re a team, and we do everything together. I’m going to get in trouble later by myself, but everything else we do together. And so, I think that’s where it starts, and you find that kind of equilibrium, that harmony. I don’t know that they’ll ever be balanced. It’s hard to be a nurse. It’s crazy schedules that you work, and we’ll just get out of sync.

And so, it’s really, it’s about finding the kind of perfect, perfect moments, and then amplifying them like we do. I mean you got to see one of the cats. We’ve got three cats. It’s literally all we talk about. If you live with three cats, it’s living with a sitcom. It’s just amazing. But I mean you always pick the stuff. I don’t know if you want to talk about the things that we do together to stay connected and invest in each other, since Joe got to play interviewer, so I thought I’d try it. I’m getting a look. I’m just going to do this.

Rachel Rush:

Oh, man. So yes, I do think that the stresses of this normal life, the unique stresses of the military can definitely take its toll. We both do work full-time jobs, and he’s away a lot. And so, I am caretaker of my three furry babies, and it can be really stressful. So, I think Toby and I navigate this pretty well because, ultimately, we are very candid and honest with one another. We tell each other what we need. We tell each other what works for us in ways of comfort and what doesn’t. I think a lot of times people forget that each person has a very unique mind and that that is a product of DNA and a lifetime of experiences, good and bad. And so, Toby’s very rational and objective. And I’m extremely anxious, and I catastrophize things. So, something that may be very stressful to me, something as benign as public speaking, Toby’s just like, “This is awesome.”

And so, we engage with things in a very different way. But what I love about our relationship, he is my best friend and my little teammate, and I can come home and if there’s something that’s worrying me that he may think is kind of ridiculous, I’ll say, “Hey, I’m worried. I need to talk about it.” And so, we’ll sit on the couch, and I’ll tell him this thing that happened to me. And he’s able to ultimately help me find peace, and oh, I’m going to cry, and that’s just so beautiful.

But on a more fun note, what do we do as companions to de-stress our life and ultimately bring joy in our lives? And I think that we have found a way. We love word play. We’re both linguists. Saturdates, because I work every Sunday, so on Saturdays we do ridiculous things like take our cat for a stroller ride. That happened. It happens a lot.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass:

[inaudible 00:30:56].

Rachel Rush:

It … Yep. There. And Toby bought this RV van, so he’s very excited about it. And we’ll take short day trips and just jam out to Phil Collins and Lionel Richie and just live our best lives. And you need somebody that is able to share those moments with you and know what brings peace and happiness in your life. And I mean, that’s how you get through it because it’s very hard to do alone. You can try, and some people are very successful, but I definitely do better having him by my side.

Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond:

Now that our playlists, we’re slightly less cool, aunt and uncle.

Lt. Gen. Caroline M. Miller:

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a cat in a stroller.

Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond:

Lionel Richie and Phil Collins. That’s

Lt. Gen. Caroline M. Miller:

Okay. All right, General Raymond. What are the main challenges for Guardians families and what is the Senior Space Force leadership doing to address those challenges?

Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond:

First of all, I want to go hang out with the crazy aunt and uncle in the van listening to Phil Collins and Lionel Richie. I think there’s three challenges I’d highlight. First is we’re new. And I’ll tell a story. I was in the Pentagon, and I saw somebody walking around, and they’re looking at pictures and I said, “What are you looking at pictures for?” “I need to know how to wear my uniform.” They came in from another service. They didn’t know where everything went on an Air Force uniform that… And so, little basic things that we just take for granted about, well not about, 895 folks that have transferred in or in the process of transferring in have to learn everything. And that also adds a layer of stress on families who are building new career paths. They’re going to bases that they may never have gone to before.

So, all of that newness brings a level of stress to it. And so, the way we’ve been working to help de-stress that a little bit is to over communicate. And so, Mollie, every month… It’s interesting. Mollie sends out a newsletter every month. I send out a newsletter every month. Mollie’s newsletter gets rave reviews. Mine is like delete. So, if you want to read anything, read hers. But it’s trying to communicate to the force things that we’re doing and just bring this sense of connection and awareness. But I’d say probably the newness part is the biggest.

The other one is childcare. I don’t want to… It’s been talked a lot about. One of the challenges that the space community has in relation to childcare is the 24/7 work environment that we operate in. A lot of our operators, especially in Colorado Springs and in Denver. Work on 24/7 shifts and 24/7 childcare availability is tough.

At Peterson-Schriever complex, there’s also been a capacity challenge, and there’s been a significant wait list, largely because we haven’t been able to hire the childcare workers to work in the childcare centers. And that’s not at Peterson-Schriever. That’s around the country. But in Peterson-Schriever, there’s been some significant challenges. What we’ve done, what they’ve done, and it’s really been pretty innovative, is to have hiring fairs where they bring everybody together. You get your background checks. You get all the different checks that you have to have all done in one-stop shopping. They’ve been able to hire more childcare workers and have actually reduced the backlog by about a hundred children over the course of this past month.

Lt. Gen. Caroline M. Miller:

And then, the last piece, I would say, is spouse employment. And there’s obviously challenges for spouse employment, especially in populations that move frequently. There’s a lot of work going on across the department of the Air Force on licensure, making sure that if you’re a nurse that you can transfer your licenses from one base to another base.

There’s also a program that we’ve started called the Guardian Family Career Program, and that’s an effort to hire guardian spouses to fill Space Force jobs or to hire military spouses to fill Space Force jobs. As we’re building this service, we’re hiring, and we’re hiring a lot of civilians. About 50% of our force are civilians. And so, we’ve been doing a lot of work on trying to connect family members to those jobs, so they can stay connected, and they can keep those jobs as they continue to progress throughout the year. We have hired, so far this year, four, and our goal is five. And so, we’ll get one more by the end of this year, and we’re going to keep that going.

One of the ways that we’re doing this, Hiring Our Heroes has a great program that they sponsor to get certificates for different career specialties like data science, project management. There’s several others that they offer. And so, Mollie is going to start class this week. Mollie and about 90 Space Force spouses are going through the Hiring Our Heroes certificate training. They’re going to get a project management certificate, and then hopefully, the goal then is for us in the Space Force to be able to tap into those spouses and hire them to be on our team. I’m about to be unemployed, so we need a certificate.

Mollie Raymond:

Thank you Jay. Look forward to starting our project management certification course. Thank you to Hiring Our Heroes and Google. And they offer the certifications in five very highly sought after career fields, as Jay mentioned, data analytics, digital marketing, eCommerce, and IT support. So, it’s for all spouses, air force, we have navy spouses, and it’s going to give us confidence. It was wonderful to hear a lot of the spouses reply back when we were starting this project. I’ve been out of the workforce for a long time. I don’t have the confidence, but doing this together as a cohort where we have study groups and are there to help and support and encourage and uplift one another, it made all the difference. So, we are looking forward to this. We’ll see where it brings us. But spouses are so talented, so smart, and they make a wonderful contribution to the workforce. We are adaptable, resilient. We want to work. We have all the qualities that companies desire in an employee. And so, please consider hiring a military spouse. Thanks.

Lt. Gen. Caroline M. Miller:

Thank you. General and Mrs. Brown, with the new school year starting and various concerns parents may have to include the worldwide pandemic, natural disasters… I’ll start over. Time. … natural disasters, social unrest, how can families obtain information about their community and about the specific schools to which they are zoned?

Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr:

I’m going to hand the mic to the expert in a second, but I want to real quickly tell you for two of us how important schools are. I’ll just talk to you about just from our own personal experience. Many of where an EFMP family. Our oldest son is on a autism spectrum, and I purposely worked my career to stay stateside for his development early in my career until I became a general officer. It was my first overseas assignment as a family.

On the other end of the spectrum, our youngest son is a high achiever. And one of the things we found out, and we didn’t realize it until he was doing us his college applications, but for his first eight years, he went to a different school every year either by PCS or by choice. And that didn’t really dawn on us until he was graduating from high school. And for us, that was something to focus on. And I’ll just tell you that Sharene is volunteer in high school. She went back to the high school our boys graduated from. They were long gone. We went back to MacDill, and she went back to volunteer again. So, it’s really important to her. So, she is the expert, and I’m going to hand that mic to her.

Sharene Brown:

He’s cracking me up. Anyway, the whole process of, for the question as you refer to it, I can’t say enough about school liaisons. And there’s a lot of folks who just don’t know much about who they are, what they do, and where they are. But they’re at every base location. And if you happen to be at a joint base that’s led by another service, other services have those school liaisons, as well. And so, if you reach out to them, they have a lot of knowledge and connection, specifically with relationships to schools, but in other areas, as well. Because, let’s say your child is home and is not feeling well or something happens medically with your child, but you still want to figure out the school situation. They can help you.

They are there not just to do the job every day. Because we all have issues with when you move from one location to another, maybe the credits for the school don’t transfer. Or maybe you have a child who’s on EFMP, and you trying to get your IEP transfer. They can help you with all those sorts of things.

The other thing I would suggest is try to find out a little information before you even get there. And contacting your school liaison is one way to do it. It’s huge. They also have the relationships that go all the way up to the superintendent at those locations. And depending on where you are, there may be a number of different counties, cities, where the military connected student may be further out from the base. As we were saying earlier, families are not all living on base anymore. They’re further out in the communities. So, being able to reach out and touch your school liaison is one way.

Some other ways that are impactful is if you haven’t or can’t reach out to your school liaison or finding it difficult to do that, make note of that. Call into the base leadership, or there’s this little thing called ICE. And I think I got this right. It’s the interactive… Help me with that. [inaudible 00:41:57]. I’m trying to remember it. So here now I wrote it down. Interactive Customer Evaluation. Yes, that’s it.

And it’s on every base installation website, where you can write in, usually by email, and if you want to be contacted back, they’ll let you do that. And just identify that you had issues. It’s not usually the school liaison that doesn’t want to get back to you. It’s because they’re so busy trying to help other people. And so, sometimes we find that the school liaison in those locations, they’re so busy managing four or five different counties and all the people that are there, that their ability to spread themselves out are just not available. So, we want to be able to say, “Hey, we want some more school liaisons in this location.”

The other thing I would suggest is, a lot of you do this already, find out what’s happening on the school website. Try to see what information is available there because I don’t know if you realize, many of you probably do, we have a national law that says, “Hey, we’re going to have education,” but ultimately, it’s the states that determine how they’re going to implement their educational curriculums. And it’s not just at the state level. It goes down to the county, down to the district. And one district can look so much different than another. So, being able to figure out how that works before you get there is monumental. So, whatever you can do to help with that.

And the other thing I would say is because we talked about national crises that are happening, and right now around the world, we’re seeing all kinds of crazy things happening. At every location, there probably is a crises management person who can provide information and usually has a website associated with that. So, if you need assistance with trying to figure out… We’ve lived in Florida for a good deal of time, and I had no idea what hurricane damage could do.

And usually, if I am correct in this, I’ll never forget our first assignment down in Miami. And my husband never lived in the South or in an area where tornadoes were prevalent. And so, I was working at the time, and my husband said to me, “Hey, there looks like a hurricane is coming. You’re going to have to pack up and move.” I’m like, “Yeah, right. I got a job. There’s no way my folks at the job are going to understand that if I leave three or four weeks in advance because they think this is something that’s going to blow through.” But it’s then opportunity to understand what that means, how damaging that could potentially be when you’re in an area. So, the crises management person can at least provide you with information. They usually have a website. And they can share that information with you. Does that make sense? Yeah?

Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond:

Could I jump in and pile in on this a little bit?

Sharene Brown:

Yes.

Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond:

One thing that I wish I would’ve known as a younger officer. As a younger officer, and we were all like this. We all signed up. We all took an oath. We all want to serve our country. The core value’s service before self. “Put me in. I’m ready to do anything.” I didn’t communicate the needs of my family to my leadership. It was like whatever they need me to do. And so we moved five one-year moves in a row. Probably didn’t have to do that. And I think it’s important for you to be able to understand that there are ways that we can help take care of your family, and you can still have a spectacular career. And I think sometimes we think that might be against our nature of service, and it’s not.

So, I would encourage each of you. And it wasn’t until I was a one-star general that, he’s been here this week, General North called me, and we were talking about a future job. And he asked me about how old my kids were. And I told him, and he said, “Hey, let’s… Not now.” And I remember, after I hung up the phone, I thought, “Man, I shouldn’t have told him that because I… ” And I should have. And lo and behold, it worked out okay for me. I would just tell you, you’re allowed to care about your family. You’re allowed to. It’s important. And we’re all big enough that we can find opportunities. Now, there will be times, I am sure, that, “Hey, we really need you to do this.” And I got that. And that’s what we’re all committed to doing. But you can take care of your families, and you need to.

Lt. Gen. Caroline M. Miller:

I get … Feeling uncomfortable here. Anyway. All right. We’re going to swing over to Mr. Bass. You are in the unique position to be the first male spouse of the chief master sergeant of the Air Force. And that has come with highlights and challenges. Can you talk to some of those challenges and how you and your family overcame them?

Rahn Bass:

I’m sorry. Can you say that … You caught me by surprise. I’m sorry. Can you repeat that question, please?

Lt. Gen. Caroline M. Miller:

Just trying to wake you up over there. All right. I said you are the unique position to be the first male spouse of the chief master sergeant of the Air Force. And that has come with highlights and challenges. Can you please talk about some of those challenges and how you and your family overcame them?

Rahn Bass:

So being dual military, I’ve never knew how unique the spouse role was, so we just did it for the time that we were married, whether it was deployments, PCS moves, or what have you. And I guess you never really have time to look at it from that perspective, but when I retired and I had an opportunity to be amongst these phenomenal, and I really mean that, to be among these phenomenal spouses here, the things that I’m privileged to see behind the scenes, the things that they advocate on behalf of our Airmen and our space force personnel, again, I’m in awe, sometimes.

So, I would tell you the adjustment for me was just being a spouse. And I don’t mean that in a way that… I just didn’t know. You don’t know what you don’t know. So, when I retired and I took on the spouse role, it was just like putting on a different set of lenses and looking at life differently and sitting back and watching the amazing things that she was doing and the amazing things that she continues to do. I love that front row seat. And to keep it in perspective for me, I just maintain, “Hey, I need to be a good husband still, and I need to be a good father to my kids.” And that’s where I keep it at even keel.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass:

So Ron is … Yeah, y’all give him a hand clap. So Ron’s super humble. I’m proud of him for a couple things. One, I’m proud to see an army guy wearing some airplane socks. This has been a big feat. Right? When he went to full-time spouse from army husband and started to go to some of the spouse socials, I had to remind him, I said, “Hey, don’t get First Sergeant and don’t get army. You’re a spouse.” But I’m really proud of the fact that he is because I think he’s helping to redefine what today’s modern military family looks like, which is very different than it was in the ’60s or ’70s. And we all look different. We have more single-family homes, we have more dual military family homes. We have more dual working homes. We have homes with children, without children, with fur babies. And so, this is normalizing it.

And so for our home, we’re helping to redefine what normal is. He doesn’t have spouse socials that are teas. I love teas. I want to go to a tea. But he actually has football spouse socials, and they love it. So, I think that this is starting to normalize that we have a whole different look when it comes to our military families.

Lt. Gen. Caroline M. Miller:

Thank you. Okay, we only have a few minutes left, so this is the lightning round. So, basically what I want everybody to do is just do quick closing comments or leave the crowd here with some last thoughts. And we can start with General Raymond.

Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond:

I’ll just say thank you. Thanks for your service. It is great to be at an event that has so many active-duty Airmen and Guardians. So, my hat’s off to AFA for making the professional development week that it is. And it’s not just a professional development week for the active-duty, it’s a professional development week for the families, as well. And I just want to say thanks again, to each and every one of you that wear this uniform or wear a uniform of our country. Hats off to you, and thank you.

Mollie Raymond:

Yes, I’d like to also say thank you for this wonderful conference, and congratulations on the attendance record. That’s great. I just like to say to our guardian families, members, loved ones, you have a front row seat in shaping the future, and remember our core values and know that you have a purposeful, powerful role in developing a fantastic service ahead of you. And Sempra Supra. Thanks.

Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr:

Well, I’ll also echo the thanks, but what I’d also highlight too, hopefully as you heard us all talk about our lives, that we are just like you. And we’ve had stressors. We’re parents. We’re brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles. Some people are grandparents. But the fact of the matter is, we’ve walked in the same paths many of you have. And our goal here is to make sure we make it better for those that follow and come behind us. And that’s what our focus is. And we want to really… We’re our hands on. We want to get engaged and break down as many barriers as we can to make serving in our Air force and Space Force the most enjoyable thing you could ever do. Thanks for being part of our team.

Sharene Brown:

I just want to say thank you. I’m going to join the team here. Thank you to AFA, especially for increasing our spouse availability or be able to attend this conference. It’s a huge deal for all of us. As we become more aware of the things that are happening with our military members, we can better support in a different way. The thing I would leave with you, we’ve had a couple of years where we’ve all been away from one another or maybe we’ve had just our nuclear family that we’ve been taking care of.

So, as we come out of this, hopefully, to connect a little bit more, communicate with one another a little bit more. Join those communities, activities, or programs. Because the more you’re connected with things and people, whether it’s at work, at church, at school, whatever programs, activities there are, sports programs, you get to see life in a different way, and you can open yourself up a little bit more. And when you do that, when one area might shut down, you have another area to go to and open your ourselves up to.

So, if you could just get out just a little bit more and enjoy yourselves and maybe bring that work-life balance into a little bit more equilibrium, I think it’ll make us all feel a little bit better. And when we build that community with one another, as the Basses were saying…

I just had to smile when he had went to his friends, his community, to get the girls’ hair done. That’s what it takes sometimes, the village. And if we could all go someplace or feel like that somebody could step in and help us out, I think we’ll all feel a little bit more comfortable. So, with that, thank you so much.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force Roger A. Towberman:

I will say thanks, too. I know the Space Force Chiefs are out here and probably, Chief Frasier has already started a pool. They all know Rachel pretty well and they’re taking bets on how fast her lightning round is going to be, so I’m really excited to hear who wins later, but thank you. And you’ve heard it. You heard it from the CSO and from the chief of staff of the Air Force, what they’re willing to do. We can’t want more for your families than you want. You’ve got to hold us accountable. You’ve got to know that they are important. And you’ve got to see this. I told someone yesterday that the strongest things we say, we don’t say with words. Look at these relationships, not just as teams, but as all of a team. If you can’t feel the genuine love and appreciation for each other up here, if you can’t see how powerful that is, come hang out with us later because it’s real. And we want that for every single one of you. So, please hold us accountable and get your stopwatches ready chiefs, because I’m giving the mic to Rachel.

Rachel Rush:

So, I wanted to take this opportunity because it will probably be the last time I share a stage with you two, just to tell you I love you both, and it’s been a beautiful journey. And thank you for bringing us along with you. Thanks.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass:

That was fast. All right, we’re down to zero seconds. Love takes work. When I hear you talk about that, love takes work. Never treat somebody you don’t know better than you treat your own spouse. That’s a good one.

And to all the family members out there, thank you so much for being here. To our service members, I want y’all to text your family members, your loved ones, your supporters, doesn’t matter who it is, and tell them that their Senior Air Force and Space Force leadership teams appreciates the heck out of everything that they do to support you.

Rahn Bass:

Thank you to AFA. Thank you for all that you do. And really, just thank you for highlighting the spouses and giving us all an opportunity to show a side of us that you normally probably wouldn’t get a chance to see. So, thank you.

Lt. Gen. Caroline M. Miller:

All right, we are down to zero seconds, but I do just want to also thank General and Mrs. Raymond. Our journey started at [inaudible 00:57:14], and we’ve seen you… I mean, it’s amazing. So, thank you very much. Good luck to you on your next adventure. Thank you all to all the panel members. This was fantastic. So, let’s give them one more round of applause.

U.S.-Norway Solid-Fuel Ramjet Passes Tests for Speed, Range

Oct. 6, 2022 | By John A. Tirpak

A solid-fuel-powered ramjet missile—a joint venture of the U.S. and Norway—passed a number of tests in August that included achieving speeds in excess of Mach 2 and increasing range, the Pentagon revealed. The technology could be applied to a new kind of hypersonic propulsion as well.

The Tactical High-speed Offensive Ramjet for Extended Range (THOR-ER) “successfully fired several times,” demonstrating “robust” performance of the solid-fueled ramjet, the Pentagon said. The THOR-ER project has been underway since April 2020, with the goal of eventually developing hypersonic weapons.

A solid-fuel ramjet offers advantages over a liquid-fueled design because the plumbing and storage tanks—and associated weight and complexity—needed for fuel and oxidizer in the latter are not necessary. This is also more efficient than a solid-fueled rocket because a solid-fueled rocket must have oxidizer mixed into the propellant, while a solid-fueled ramjet uses oxygen in the ambient air to burn the fuel. The solid fuel is exposed to ambient oxygen in the combustion chamber and burns as it sublimates.

Versus a solid-fueled rocket, a solid-fueled ramjet, according to a hypersonics expert, “releases more energy” and can offer longer range.

“The trick,” he said, is the shaping of the fuel in the combustion chamber.

“If you start with a small hole,” such as a cylinder of fuel, “and burn outwards, the radius of the hole increases” as the fuel burns, “and thus, more fuel area is exposed,” increasing combustion. “That means thrust can increase in ways you might not want. So, more complicated geometries are often used.”

A solid-fuel ramjet also offers advantages in being storable for a longer period of time than a solid rocket and is safer to handle because it has no oxidizer and won’t explode, even if handled roughly, as long as the fuel isn’t exposed to air. A solid-fuel rocket with oxidizer mixed into the fuel is scarcely different from a bomb, the expert said. Solid fuel with oxidizer mixed in has “instabilities,” he said.

The tests were Aug. 17 and 18 at Andoya Space Flight Center in northern Norway.

“The test vehicle fired several times, showing the viability of ramjet propulsion technology and demonstrating significant increases in effective range,” the Pentagon said.

The tests met program Phase 1 objectives such as demonstrating “new high-energy fuels, advanced air injection, and throttling methodologies which will be essential for mission-flexible [solid-fuel ramjet] systems of the future,” the Pentagon said.

In the first flight, on Aug. 17, the vehicle demonstrated performance “across a wide range of altitudes and speeds,” the Pentagon said. The second test, the next day, “focused on a high thrust flight profile.” The vehicles flew to burnout and went into the ocean. Telemetry and data obtained are being used to evaluate the system’s performance.

Heidi Shyu, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, commended the THOR-ER team “for their outstanding work weathering the pandemic environment, continuing the development of this significant propulsion technology, and promoting continued science and technology collaboration with our partners in Norway.”

The U.S. needs to work closely with its allies “to ensure our joint force has the most cutting-edge capabilities on the battlefield,” Shyu said.

A solid booster accelerated the test vehicle to speeds beyond Mach 2. The vehicle then transitioned to ramjet mode.

Stein Nodeland, executive vice president for propulsion at Nammo (Nordic Ammunition Company) called the flight phase “a resounding success” in that it demonstrated “stable flight, robust ramjet operation, and a high thrust-to-drag ratio.” The performance conformed with pre-flight estimates.

The vehicle demonstrated a “high-speed, long-range trajectory,” Nodeland said.

“This is a real milestone,” he said. “While not the first ramjet vehicle, it is the first modern ramjet, with a potential for a great improvement in range, time to target, and agility.”

Stephen Farmer, director for advanced concepts, prototyping, and experimentation at the Naval Air Weapons Center, said “we believe the SFRJ is going to be a game-changer for the U.S. Navy and our allied partners.”

The THOR-ER program is a collaboration of Shyu’s office, the Joint Hypersonics Transition Office, the Naval Air Weapons Center, Weapons Division, the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, and Nammo.

The Air Force is developing two air-launched hypersonic weapons—one air-breathing, the other a boost-glide weapon—and the Army and Navy are collaborating on surface-launched boost-glide hypersonic weapons.

Watch, Read: Maj. Gen. Doug Schiess on Space Operations, Today & Tomorrow

Oct. 6, 2022

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess, commander of the Combined Force Space Component Command for U.S. Space Command and vice commander of Space Operations Command, participated in a one-one-one discussion about “Space Operations, Today & Tomorrow” at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference, Sept. 19, 2022. Watch the video or read the transcript below. This transcript is made possible through the sponsorship of JobsOhio.

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Voiceover

Please welcome our next speakers to the stage, Maj. Gen. Douglas Schiess, Commander, Combined Forces Space Component Command, United States Space Command and Vice Commander, Space Operations Command, United States Space Force and AFA’s Director of STEM Education programs, Col. Stuart Pettis.

Stuart Pettis

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our session on space operations, today and tomorrow. Space Operations Command, or SpOC, is just one of three Space Force field commands and the only one devoted to operations. It is responsible for everything from electronic warfare to satellite operations, to ISR. It is with a great honor that I get to have host a panel with my old boss, Maj. Gen. Douglas Scheiss, the vice commander of Space Operations Command. Welcome, General.

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Hey Stu, thanks. Appreciate the opportunity in one of my hats to talk about the awesome women and men of Space Operations Command. I hope when you all realize that this is not Gen. Whiting sitting here, that everyone doesn’t start exiting the stage, because that was the plan and unfortunately due to a small family issue, everything’s OK. He couldn’t be here today. But it’s always great to jump in for my boss and so appreciate that. So thanks.

Stuart Pettis

Thanks, sir. So General, I just briefly touched on some aspects of Space Operations Command’s mission, however, how would you describe your mission in its critical contributions to national defense?

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Yeah, thanks Stu. So obviously you mentioned that Space Operations Command is one of three field commands within the Space Force. When we reorganized or set up the Space Force, we did that with some intentionality to have an operations command, an acquisition and sustainment command, and then a training and readiness command.

So SpOC is the nexus between the Space Force and United States Space Command, where that obviously, that operational component of the Space Force. But then we are presented to U.S. Space Command to do that mission. We are the fight tonight force for our nation and for U.S. Space Command.

We do that in several different mission areas, but a little bit different than we were in under what the old Air Force Space Command, where all of the organize, train, and effect, or organize, train, and equip forces work together in Air Force Space Command. We’re now separated between those three field commands and that allows SpOC to just focus on operations.

And we do that in several different areas. Obviously one of the most important is our space domain awareness, knowing the domain that we’re in, knowing what is out there, what our adversaries and our allies are doing, so that we can be a better force to do that. We also do a very critical no-fail mission of missile warning and our support to missile defense and missile tracking.

And so we have to do that on a daily basis to make sure that we’re preparing for all, not only U.S. Space Command, but for all the combatant commands. We do electromagnetic warfare, we do command and control. We have to be able to command and control our forces for U.S. Space command.

And then most recently we’ve added some capabilities that were there, but put more emphasis on them in the defensive cyber capabilities that we have to do. My boss likes to say that cyber is the soft underbelly of space operations and so we have to make sure that we are cyber secure.

And then ISR, we have to be able to put forces together with intel-led operations. We also have SATCOM, we have GPS, and then we have the Protect and Defend mission. And so SpOC protects American, our allies, in, from, and to space and we do that on focused on combat, readiness, and our ISR-led forces.

Stuart Pettis

Awesome, sir. So Space Operations Command is now just two years old. Can you explain how you got here and where you are today and then what advancements are you going to make to Space Operations?

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Thanks. Obviously the whole Space Force is light, lean, and agile and so when we decided to go into these three field commands and set them up, SpOC being the first field command that was set up, we’re just about ready to have our second birthday. So we’re a little bit younger than the Space Force.

Gen. Whiting would like to say that we’re, we’re now walking, we’re crying, we’re making ourself known as a two year old does. But we’re doing things to be able to put ourselves on the right path. One of the things that we did in that lean and agile, is we compress our command echelons. So if you go back to our time in the … Air Force where we had squadrons, groups, wings, numbered air forces, MAJCOMs, we now have squadrons that are mission-focused. But we also have Deltas, that’s our O-6 level of command that is mission-focused and then right up to the field command at that level.

And then those forces are presented to task forces and others across the combatant command. We also, in our area of preparing, partnering and posturing for the fight, we knew that we couldn’t be the old Air Force Space Command of the past. While we still have the Napoleonic structure of an S staff, we had to combine those together just by virtue of having less personnel. And we did that into three, kind of like the Space Force staff did into three deputy commanding general for different things.

So we had a deputy commanding general for operations, that has our 2, our 3, our 5, so our operations, our intel, our cyber and our nuclear forces, our NC3 forces. But then we have a deputy commander for support, that has our personnel, our logistics, our plans and programs. And then really interesting, we have an exchange officer from the Royal Canadian Air Force, Brig. Gen. Kyle Paul who took the place of Brig. Gen. Kevin Whale before him, that puts all of our innovation, our transformation, our chief data officer, our chief technology and information officer all together in one to make us better.

So we still have all the necessary forces, but those are under those three. And then probably the most biggest change that we’ve done, is we set up these mission area teams that are focused just on a mission area to be that headquarters element to support both up to the Space Force staff and across the U.S. Space command, but also down to our Deltas, to ensure that Delta commander who needs to be just focused on operations has the capability at the headquarters there to be able to do that.

Those are led by 0-6s or NH-4s or GS-15s. And we found just incredible synergies there to be able to do that. So that’s one of the areas. And then lastly, we helped stand up the other two field commands. So we had the honor of having STAR Delta in our formation and then helped as Maj. Gen. Bratton stood up STAR Command and we helped them by providing them resources until they could stand up.

And then obviously Space Systems Command was well on their way with Space and Missile System Center, but we transferred the launch mission to Space Systems Command. We wanted to make sure we did that without a fail. And so that was a big effort in our first year. Second year we pivoted to improving our warfighting posture. One of the ways we did that is we stood up combat training squadrons within each of the Deltas.

So while STARCOM does an incredible job of providing us the Guardians that are ready to do either space operations, intel, cyber or in the acquisition community. We then use those cyber training or those combat training squadrons to provide the next level of their weapon system and make sure that they are ready to do that—Are they doing advanced training in the congested and contested environment? And so we were able to do that.

A couple really interesting and cool things that we did is we stood up two Deltas that are focused on areas that we’ve always had to have but really weren’t concentrated. And that’s Delta 6, which is our cyber Delta. And it has a couple different missions. One is to continue the legacy of the old Air Force satellite control network, which is now the satellite control network, to provide that ability to contact and command and control your satellites, not just for the Space Force but for civil and our National Reconnaissance Office partners.

So they’ve continued to find ways to make that more efficient, because obviously with more satellites, we were getting to our capacity level. They’re working with our Space Systems field command to bring on phased array antennas to make that even better.

But one of the most important things they’re doing is they’re bringing on mission defense teams. So cyber squadrons are being developed. As a matter of fact, we’re going to bring on more cyber squadrons in the next year to partner with each of those Deltas, to be able to provide that defense of our cyber system.

One of the best examples of that is right now in Delta 4, we have a cyber squadron that is doing mission defense on the SBIRS architecture and making sure that that SBIRS mission, the Space-based Infrared System mission that the nation needs to be able to provide warning and decision makers time that is cyber secure. And so they are right there in the same building and the same ops floor with our space missile warning operators and they’re doing incredible job. We’ll continue to do that. Obviously we can only do a small portion of our whole structure, but we’re going to continue to do that.

And then even probably more revolutionary is our Delta 7, our intel surveillance and reconnaissance Delta that is bringing on space intel into our operations so that our operations can be intel-led. And one of the things that they’ve done is they’ve stood up detachments in each of our Deltas focused specifically on that mission.

So for instance, our electromagnetic Delta, Delta 3 that is performing those missions. They have an attachment of intel specialist Guardians that are not only intel professionals, but they know the electromagnetic spectrum.

And so they’re sitting in that kind of left seat, right seat, right there with the operators, making sure that they’re doing that. What that one thing has done right there is shorten the amount of time that we get intel from intel to the operators from days to minutes. And so an incredible job that the team has been doing, the men and women of space operations command in our first couple of years.

Stuart Pettis

Awesome. So sir, can you talk about what space operations looks like in the future and how do you plan to be successful in future conflicts with potential adversaries? Because we know that they’re also making significant advances in space operations as well.

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Yeah, obviously if you’ve heard this morning from the Secretary and Gen. Brown and then others today, our near-peer competitors are continuing to modernize their forces and developing new long range conventional strike weapons that pose challenges to our defenses. And so like I said, we have to continue to have that intel-led operations, so that we can make decisions faster to be able to get ahead of those near peer competitors.

We also have to harden ourself with our cyber defenses, to make sure that, that’s not an easy way for them to get after us. We want to make it hard for them to be able to do anything to our assets. And then we need to … you heard a little bit from Gen. Saltzman and his testimony, how we’re going to force package our forces. So we have GPS operators that are flying the GPS constellation. Well, we need to make sure that they’re working with our SATCOM operators and our protect and defend operators.

So it’s not just one mission area working together, but we’re making sure that we’re working together to be the best that we can be. One of the things we also did, and actually then-Maj. Gen. Leah Lauderback, I think I saw earlier today, Lt. Gen. Leah Lauderback and I know Maj. Gen. Select Greg Gannon in their S-2 capacity at the Space Force staff, helped SpOC stand up the National Space Intelligence Center and bring on Delta 18.

We’re the 18th member of the Intelligence Community. And so bring on that capability, to provide not only critical intel that maybe takes a little bit longer to get at that our operators need, but also providing that to our national authorities. And so that’s been a big thing that we’ve done over the last couple days.

But regardless, we have to continue all of those things, but we also have to bring on new architecture. We have to make sure that we don’t, as my good friend Maj. Gen. Deana Burt, some of our satellites are the fat kids in gym class. We need to make sure that we have a resilient force across and not so many fat kids, although those are really capable fat kids. But we need to make sure that we have a structured, layered architecture out there to be able to do our mission.

Stuart Pettis

Yes, sir. So sir, you recently transferred Army and Navy SATCOM capabilities into the Space Force. Can you speak about what that is done for the space enterprise and what there’ll be more capabilities transitioning?

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Yeah, there’s some really interesting and cool things with this as well. So as you know, Stu, I happened to be the force ops commander a long, long time ago. And in that mission there, I actually had both flying the satellite bus and the payload, but not all of the payload. Some of that was still done out at other regional SATCOM support centers around the world.

We have now in conjunction with the Army, working together, have brought all of SATCOM into the Space Force and specifically into one Delta. And the really cool thing is here that Delta Commander is our first Army IST colonel that is commanding a Delta. And so that’s Col. Dave Pheasant and his folks at Delta 8. And so they have brought that on.

So last June, we brought over the Navy SATCOM mission from Point Magu. And so we stood up a squadron there, the 10th Space Operation Squadron, to be able to do that mission for the UFO, the ultra high frequency follow-on satellite. And then the mobile user objective system satellite MUOS, that brings that narrowband forces to all kinds of warfighters around the world.

And so that is now under Space Operations Command and they’re doing incredible job. And then probably even a bigger lift is we worked with our friends at Space and Missile Defense or Army Space and Missile Defense Command to bring over the wideband part of that. So for years, the Air Force Space Command and the Space Force for the last three years has been flying the DSCS, the Defense Satellite Communication System and then the wideband global SATCOM system.

But we’ve only really been flying the bus, making sure kind of from an airplane perspective, making sure the airplane’s in the right spot, but then folks in the back are actually controlling the payload. And that was the Army that was doing that. We have now brought that into our forces as well.

With that came about 300 personnel, both Army Soldiers and civilians that are now Guardians and Department of the Air Force civilians across the globe with all of our wideband satellite operation centers, that are all over the world to be able to command plan and control those satellite systems and networks and our regional SATCOM centers.

So now within Delta 8, the whole SATCOM architecture is within one Delta Commander and one field command, to be able to do that, integrate. We’re finding synergies already and being able to be able to take people off of one network and put them on another, that in the past could have happened, but was much harder to do.

So an incredible lift over the last year and I just want to thank the Army for the help that they did to be able to do that. And then on top of that, over the next year, we’re in talks with the Army, that we would bring over, I want to say JTAG, but I want to make sure I get it right, the Joint Tactical Ground Station Mission as well. And that will also bring all of that missile warning for all of the theater combatant commanders into one as well. And so we’re on the very beginning stages of that. But I know that our partnership with the Army was great for the SATCOM and I know it’ll be great for the Army as well. Or for the JTAG as well.

Stuart Pettis

Yes, sir. So sir, we’re entering a new war fighting environment. How do you prepare Guardians to fight in a domain as new as space?

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Yeah, thank you. One thing we have to do is we have to be agile enough to be able to test and train and be able to change much faster. We have this new intel-led operations and how does that intel get into our training? And so my good friend, Maj. Gen. Bratton at STARCOM has a responsibility to provide us Guardians that are ready to do that, for SpOC, at least in the area of space operations, intel, and cyber.

But he also does that for the acquirers at Space Systems Command as well. So we have to work with them to make sure that they’re getting the intelligence, the threat is based and we’re getting that threat into our training as soon as possible. But we also have to be able to have a test infrastructure, to be able to get after that. We can no longer put a satellite up and say, “We’ll test it.” And then we’re just going to put it right into operations.

We have to be able to test that in an environment that shows that … that contested environment and be able to give our operators the ability to do that much like they do out at Nellis [Air Force Base]. Perform the missions before they actually perform the missions. And so we’re working with STARCOM on that.

They’re obviously trying to stand up a National Space and Training Center and we’re STARCOM’s probably biggest proponent to help them be able to do that. But we have to continue to do that. We also have to continue in our intel and our cyber and not just rest on our laurels, but bring them up to new capabilities as well as we train them. And so all space operations has to continue to evolve, learn from the threat, learn from the adversaries, and then be able to test and train in an environment that provides the best Guardians to do the mission that they need to do.

Stuart Pettis

Outstanding, sir. So many leaders have also stressed the need to accelerate change, to keep pace with our potential adversaries. So what can your Guardians and Space Operations Command do to meet that challenge?

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Yeah, it’s definitely a contested environment out there. One of the things you could look at is just the number of launches that’s going on. So since July 22, 46 U.S. launches. My good friend Steve Purdy and his team and Rob Long out of Vanderberg are launching satellites like you wouldn’t believe. But the Chinese are also launching satellites like you wouldn’t believe, and so are the Russians and so are the other nations.

And so we need to keep pace on that. We have to have automation and we have to have tools and analytics to be able to do things faster. Back when you and I were youngins, it was a keyboard and a mouse where we were flying satellites, but we were also doing a lot of stuff on chalkboards.

Stuart Pettis

Grease pens.

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Grease pens and different checklists and making decisions with the best possible information. Well now the speed of data and things that we have, we have to harness that and to be able to have that. One of the things that Delta 4 in what we call a combat development team. So this is operators and acquirers put together to be able to get after innovative things that we can just bring on without a huge acquisition program.

One of the things that they did, was they brought on the Delta analysis report and tracking system. So it’s an application that helps them do basically what they were doing on pen and pencil and maybe some calculators, to be able to do that much faster. So when we’re in a situation with the number of missiles that we have seen in the environment today, they can make decisions faster. They can do things to be able to harness the capability of the missile warning constellation to be able to do it much better.

And so they’re continuing to do that, bringing on new areas. But we also have to make sure that we build Guardians that have that thought, that innovative thought, kind of run with scissors carefully. But make sure that they’re doing what we want and from the lowest level, that they have a voice and what’s the best thing to do. And so getting after that.

One of the other things we’re doing is we’re working to stand up Delta 15. That Delta will be the C2 delta for the National Space Defense Center, much like Delta 5 is that for the Combined Space Operations Center. When we stood up the National Space Defense Center, we kind of did that on the backs of some joint billets and other things. Well now as a service, we need to be able to provide a Delta that C2s that. Those two centers will work together, as I said, bringing that synergy to be able to not only provide those combat-relevant effects to the warfighter, but also making sure that we’re protecting and defending and working together.

So we need to continue to expand that Protect and Defend mission. The operators of Delta 4 and Delta 8 that do those high value assets, they need to be linked with the operators of Delta 9, that are eventually going to bring on that Protect and Defend mission. And so we have to find ways to be able to do that. So we’re getting after that with our Protect and Defend concept and just continuing to look at ways to be better.

Stuart Pettis

Just out of curiosity, sir, the CDT and Delta 4 that did that Delta analysis tool, what rank were those guys?

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Probably some lieutenants and I definitely know some NCOs that were there to be able to do that.

Stuart Pettis

Outstanding.

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Kind of off script a little bit, but our Supra Coder program within the Space Force enabled some of those guys to go get the training to be able to then get after some of this analytics. And then the thing that we have to do is just make sure that they can get access to the data now and making sure it’s cyber secure. But then they can get access to the data, use what they’re learning in the supra coder program, to then be able to get after some of these problems.

Stuart Pettis

That’s amazing, sir. So as the operational arm of the Space Force, what areas would you like to see more highlighted in the future?

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Yeah, one of the things that we’re obviously working through is sustainment. And so if you haven’t been out to one of our ground-based radars, they’re aging. They have great software, not only Space Systems Command, but Air Force Material Command and Air Force Life Cycle Management Center has done a great job continuing to bring them up to the capabilities they need to do.

But as you know, they got some really old parts. And so we have to make sure that we have, as Gen. Whiting would say, space log-ins. Folks that know how to get after that. In my other hat, my other boss, Gen. Dickinson really wants to make sure that we are getting after when there’s an outage as fast as we can. And that we are finding innovative ways to bring those capabilities back. And so that’s just an area that we need to continue to work on.

Gen. Whiting likes to use the quote from Sun Tzu about if you know logistics, there’s order. I’m kind of getting it wrong. He’s like, “We need to have logistics to be able to get after our mission.” And so that’s an area that we need to continue to work on. A couple other areas that are in my other hat too that we do at Space Operations Command is our integration with the commercial partners.

And so one of the things we’ve stood up at CFSCC, the Combined Force Space Component Command is the cyber intelligence, our cyber integration center, or I’m sorry, commercial integration center, where we have folks together, each of those companies bring someone forward that is cleared to the top secret SCI level and they sit right in our area there at the Combined Space Operations Center and work together with us. And so we have to be able to do that, because one, we might get some of that leading intel from them if they’re seeing something that’s going on with their systems.

But we also may able to be able to provide them some information that we could only provide at a classified level. I got it, we got to get at over-classification. But sometimes because of intel stuff, they are classified. But being there together in the CSpOC, at the classified level, we can integrate together, we can synergize and we can make sure that we’re doing the right thing. So that’s been a huge effort and we’ll continue to do that not only from the Space Force, but from U.S. Space Command to bring on more capability to integrate with our commercial.

And then obviously, most important is our coalition and our allies and work together to be able to do that. I know that I talk on a regular basis with my counterparts in the U.K., Australia and Canada. As a matter of fact, they’re in our weekly and intelligence updates and we’re making sure that we are providing the information, because quite frankly we’ve got to get to where let’s bring their capabilities and then not get those … we don’t have to spend money on those and then we can provide capabilities to them and we’re a stronger force together. And so those are the things that we’re working on in the future.

Stuart Pettis

So this kind of near new to my heart, we know in a military service, we always have some unsung heroes out there. What parts of the mission do you wish the general public knew more about?

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Yeah, it’s interesting. I actually was at a family event this weekend and someone said, “Hey, someone told me the bald guy over there is a two star in the Space Force.” And so he came over and started talking. I don’t know what he is talking about. I have plenty of hair, but—

Stuart Pettis

Sir, I’m jealous. That’s all I got to say.

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

OK. But his first comment was, “Hey, what does the Space Force do? I don’t get this.” And so just talking to him to the fact that I asked him, “Did you drive to the event here using Global Positioning System?“ He’s like, “You mean the thing on my phone? Yes.” “Well that was brought to you by the Space Force.”

And so some of the unsung heroes are just the things that we do each and every day across op centers, across the world. The women and men of space operations come in that are up at places like Thule at two o’clock in the morning making sure that any missile attack is categorized and sent to the national leaders to make that decision.

The people that are at locations like Guam, or other locations, Diego Garcia, where they leave their families, or actually right now we have deployed forces forward, doing the mission that leave their families. Every, everyone that’s in an operation center doing that is an unsung hero.

And then I just have to give a shout out to the United States Air Force too, because all of our installations, we have to have the Air Force help us do our mission. And so those defenders that are on the gate that are providing defense for those operations centers, those logistics readiness squadron folks that are doing, those are the unsung heroes, making sure that we do the space operations that we need to do today.

Stuart Pettis

And by the way, you did mention the greatest base in the Department of the Air Force, Thule.

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

I thought you’d like that.

Stuart Pettis

I love that. Yes. So sir, it’s been two years, or coming up on two years, for Space Operations Command. What are your proudest achievements?

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Yeah, so I just said some of them, but what I would like to say is for those of us in the Space Force, it’s felt like we’ve been on high speed for about three years, just going as fast as we can to bring on this new service, to do all the things we need to do. And thankfully, I’ve got great colleagues up at the Pentagon that are doing the really hard work, bringing on new uniforms. And the things that are really important to our Guardians.

And so some people might joke, but that is a really important thing to our Guardians. But they’re also bringing on new capabilities for our personnel. How we rate our personnel, how we develop our personnel. And so they’re doing all that hard work with the STARCOM and Space Systems Command. And so there’s just incredible amount of work. But what I would say is to the average American, they didn’t see anything lost.

We continue to do every day what we need to do, to be able to provide defense of our space assets and really important, provide combat-relevant effects to the joint war fighter and protect them as well. And so that’s what I’m most proud of, is while we’ve been doing all of these changes and making sure that we’ve got everything set, organizational changes and things to do to be able to be that Space Force of the future, we didn’t miss a beat with the operations.

And so just an incredible job for both the Guardians and the Airmen, each and every day come to Space Operations Command or STARCOM or Space Systems Command and just do the mission. As Gen. Brown said, “Do the j-o-b.” And so I’m really proud of the efforts that they’ve done.

Stuart Pettis

Outstanding, sir. We have a few more minutes. Are any other topics that we didn’t discuss what you’d like to address? Any other things? Anything? What’s keeping you up at night?

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Wow, what’s keeping me up at night?

Stuart Pettis

Or are you—

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

No, I, well, I sleep pretty good. My wife’s right over there, so she can tell you if I sleep pretty good, but I sleep good because of what I just talked to you about. The women and men that are doing the mission every day. I do think we have to continue to push on our architecture. And I know that Lt. Gen. Guetlein and the Space Systems Command, along with all of our acquisition partners, we have the Space Rapid Capabilities Office, the Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, Space Development Agency.

We have to look at architectures that are more resilient and more reliable. We’re still going to have those big satellite systems, but we can’t rely just on them. We’ve got to get after having more resilient, because the adversaries are looking at us. They’ve watched us for 21 years. They know that space is important to our joint war fighters. And so that they’re doing things to be able to take away those capabilities. And we have to do everything that we can to protect and defend those, while still providing those combat relevant effects to the war fighter.

Stuart Pettis

Outstanding sort. So ladies and gentlemen, this is the time we have. Gen. Schiess, thank you so much for stepping in and it’s always, always a pleasure to have you up on stage and work with you. On behalf of, obviously besides people in the room, we also are streaming this, so we know we have young Guardians who are watching. Thanks for giving them some insight and what their future might be.

Thank you very much for that. And for audience members, one plea, I am your AFA director of STEM education programs. What that means is I oversee cyber patriot and seller explorers. Last year we had 22,000 high school and middle school students learning about space system design and cyber defense. We know we’ll have a couple hundred of them that will actually join the services.

So I’d encourage you to learn more about that. And for our corporate sponsors who sponsor us, thank you so much. And sorry I got to make an announcement. If you’re joining us for the outstanding Airmen of the Year reception tonight, we look forward to seeing you at the exhibit hall beginning at 1700. Otherwise, we’ll be back here at 08:20 tomorrow. Have a great day.

Maj. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess

Thanks, Stu. Appreciate it.

Stuart Pettis

Thank you, sir.

Watch, Read: Top USAF Commanders on Countering Russian Aggression

Oct. 6, 2022

Gen. James B. Hecker, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa; Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife, commander of Air Force Special Operations Command; Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, commander of Air Forces Central; and Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart, head of the 19th Air Force, all took part in a panel on “Countering Russian Aggression” at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference, Sept. 19, 2022. Watch the video or read the transcript below. This transcript is made possible through the sponsorship of JobsOhio.

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Voiceover

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the 19th Air Force Commander, Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart. Gen. Stewart served previously as the Deputy Chief of Staff of Strategic Employment at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Good morning. I would like to warmly welcome you to the first Air, Space & Cyber … panel of AFA 2022. And what a panel it is. We open this symposium with a topic pulled directly from the headlines of every newspaper, policy document, and think tank article in America, and one which goes straight to the heart of America’s national security. Today’s panel is titled ‘Countering Russian Aggression.’ And to lead this discussion, we’ve assembled some of the greatest warriors the U.S. Air Force and NATO have to offer and whom I will introduce you to momentarily. To begin with, I’m Phillip Stewart and I’m the commander of 19th Air Force and extremely honored to serve as your panel moderator.

Now you might be asking, why is the 19th Air Force commander moderating a panel on countering Russian aggression? And that’s a fantastic question. The short answer is, I’ve been the 19th Air Force commander for about a month. But before that and when this panel was assembled, I was SHAPE’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Employment. SHAPE, which is the military branch of NATO, combines operations, the three, ISR, the two, nuclear operations, the 10, and cyber into a single directorate so that SACEUR has one single person to coordinate effects, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Employment. And of note, other than SACEUR, whom we just recognized and is sitting in the front row there grading our homework right now, Gen. Wolters and I were the only U.S. generals stationed on the SHAPE staff at the time of this crisis. Now for context, when those in the front row there were all lieutenants 30 years ago, we had seven American GOs on the SHAPE staff and another 17 scheduled throughout the NATO alliance. But since then we’ve divested all of those GO billets, probably to the CENTCOM branch.

So if we’re going to get serious about countering Russia—and I believe when you hear the leaders in the room, on the stage present their views, you’ll agree with me that that’s a good idea—a great place to start will be by deliberately placing strategic Airmen in the SHAPE headquarters. Of note, Gen. Wolters and I were replaced by really fantastic Army generals who will do great things for the alliance. But there are currently no Air Force generals in the military headquarters or the greatest alliance the world’s ever known, NATO. NATO is also the most powerful alliance the world has ever known and it’s the sole protector of the Westphalian order, which rose postWorld War II, and whose hallmarks are democracy, liberty, respect for human rights, and women’s rights, state sovereignty and the rules-based international world order. Over one billion people, freedom-loving people, reside, and one third of the world’s military and industrial might, live in peace and prosperity under the NATO umbrella.

But that peace is now threatened by aggression not seen in over 75 years, Russian aggression. Joining me this morning are three of the Air Force’s most renowned warriors, all of whom have faced and fought Russian aggression and are here to share their wisdom with us. Together they represent the full spectrum of US and alliance capability with in depth knowledge of the current Russia-Ukraine conflict. Please welcome my guests, the commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, USAFE, and the commander of NATO Air Command, Gen. James Hecker. The commander of Air Force Special Operations Command, Lt. Gen. Jim Slife. The commander 9th Air Force and the CENTCOM CFACC, Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich.

Gen. Hecker, please set the stage for us as we start at the strategic level and then work downwards. Now, you’re the most senior U.S. Airman in NATO, so let’s talk about NATO unity. Putin had three main goals. One, divide the alliance, two, isolate Ukraine from assistance primarily through economic blackmail and intimidation of neighbors, and three, execute a rapid war. To counter that, Gen. Wolters, as SACEUR, set three strategic objectives of his own. One, maintain alliance unity, two, support Ukraine, and three, don’t get NATO into a shooting war with Russia. So why was NATO able to obtain its objectives of maintaining unity while Russia was not able to divide the alliance, sir?

Gen James B. Hecker

Well, thanks, Gen. Stewart, and thanks to AFA for providing the three of us the opportunity to be able to speak to you today on this subject. That’s a great question. A lot of people didn’t know how this war was going to go when it started out. A lot of people thought it was going to finish early. But we had some good successes and he was not able to divide NATO. And the big question is, why was he not able to divide NATO and get other countries to question, “Should we be involved in this war at all?” And here’s what we did. We got into the information space and we went aggressive. We did things that we have not done before. We took classified information that we had and instead of keeping it to ourselves, we actually put it out there. We knew that Russia was planning to go to war and it just wasn’t a buildup, it just wasn’t an exercise. We knew that they were going to invade Ukraine.

We also knew that they were going to try to set it up and make it look like Ukraine attacked them and hence they attacked Ukraine so it wasn’t their fault. Normally, we would’ve kept that to ourselves. But instead of doing that, we went public before Russia actually invaded Ukraine and said, “Hey, here’s what they plan on doing. They’re going to say that Ukraine attacked them. They’re going to put some dead bodies around. They’re going to film it and they’re going to say they just did this in self-defense.” So when the Russians did that a couple days later, we all knew that it was just a made-up story because we came and we were offensive and we were proactive in telling that that’s what they were going to do. So when they did it, NATO knew it was going to happen. And quite honestly, the rest of the world knew it was going to happen and they didn’t believe it, for most of countries.

And matter of fact, it really worked to Putin’s disadvantage because it really brought NATO together. It also got other nations who were on the fence that they wanted to join NATO. Now, we’ve got… You saw the video earlier here with our good friends from Sweden and Finland and they’re going to be joining NATO and that’s going to be very powerful. When you look at Finland bringing 64 F-35s, you look at Sweden who’s going to get 60 Gripen EFs and then you look at the geography of where they’re at, that is a huge plus for NATO as far as geography as well as what they bring in the air as far as firepower goes.

Now, he also wanted to make sure that we couldn’t support Ukraine as far as giving them different things. And we’ve seen that that has not worked for them at all. We’ve been able to give them a lot of weapon systems, whether that was surface-to-air missiles, whether that’s GMLRS, whether that’s, you name the different things, 155 that we’ve given them, that have really enabled them to not only have a five-day war or 10-day war that a lot of us thought that it would be and the Russians would be able to move forward, but allowed them, here we are 200 days later, to go from giving up some of their country to a stalemate, now to a counter-offensive, which are going back now.

Who knows how this thing is going to end? But with the support of our NATO nations and everything that we’ve given them, they’ve been able to halt it and now actually go on a counter offensive. So I think what we did, and my predecessors with Gen. Harrigian and Gen. Wolters, what they did as far as making sure that we are united at NATO, united as a country and the world, I think was a huge success that we haven’t been good at in the past. So that was very good.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

And how often do we always fault either our strategic communications or our intel for not giving us accurate information? But in this case it was probably the greatest thing they did, right? We had all the intel, as you said. We shared it and we were open kimono with all of our allies. In fact, some of the intel was very exquisite in that regard. So kudos to those two communities, Intel and PA, for getting that right. Gen. Slife, Gen. Hecker talked about the importance of maintaining alliance unity. But there was also the importance of maintaining unity inside our own U.S. and also across the domains as well in the interagency level. As the Air Force’s premier expert on special operations, can you point to the unique role SOF played, or Special Forces played, in this regard? And for that matter, comment on the role played as a global integrator, which has not always been SOF’s role, especially over the last 20 years?

Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife

Yeah, thanks. So as the Special Operations Forces reflect on what we have learned in the last 20 years of counter-VEO operations, counterinsurgencies and so forth, I think there are a number of lessons that we can learn, best practices, things that we did particularly well, that have applicability to different contexts. There are probably also some things that we need to not count on in the future. One of the things that I think SOF has done particularly well over the last 20 years is recognizing that to get anything done, you really need the support, not only within the DOD with our other services and other components, but also across our government, across the intelligence community and with our allies and partners. And so SOF has built a pretty impressive network of relationships with partners, with embassy, with country teams, with other departments in the executive branch across the intelligence community.

That network of relationships has applicability far beyond the counter-VEO fight. So that’s something that I think SOF has been able to leverage pretty well over the last eight years of engaging with the Ukrainian Armed Forces, training them, empowering their noncommissioned officer corps. I think SOF has done this particularly well. One of the lessons that we probably ought not learn from the last 20 years is I think historically the role of Special Operations has been to provide key enabling capabilities that allowed the broader joint force to be successful. And over the last 20 years, in many ways SOF has become the supported element in the counter-VEO campaigns around the globe and I don’t think that will persist in the future. I think SOF has to think of itself in terms of the broader joint force and what can we do to provide those capabilities that might not be resident elsewhere?

And so for example, in our European forces in the Special Operations Command, part of what I’ve told them that they need to do is they need to get closely linked up with Gen. Hecker as the air component commander and think about creative ways that SOF can enable the air component to be successful going forward. So I think there is a lot to be learned, but foremost among those is the importance of those relationships and partnerships not only within the U.S. military but across the government and with our partners.

Lt. Gen. James C. Slife, commander of Air Force Special Operations Command, at the Countering Russian Aggression panel at the Air, Space & Cyber Conference at the Gaylord Hotel in Maryland, September 19, 2022. Photo: Air & Space Forces Magazine

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Yes, sir. Great insight on that role. Lt. Gen. Grynkewich, as an expert in CENTCOM AOR, how do you think Russia’s experiences in Ukraine will impact their posture across the world, specifically in relation to China, North Korea, and in your own backyard, in the Middle East, writ large with Iran? Do you think they’ll be more aggressive now? Do you think they’ll be more passive, talking about Russia? And in that vein, what can we glean about the global nature of regional conflicts? Are they really regional anymore or do they have impacts across?

Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich

Yeah, thanks, Weeble. A great question and actually you ended where I wanted to start. Many of you may be wondering why the AFCENT Commander is sitting here on a panel on Russia. And it’s because strategic competition is not constrained by somewhat arbitrary boundaries that we place on a map at the combatant command lines. And so Gen. Hecker and I talk often, a couple of times a week, about Russian activity in Syria and what’s happening in Ukraine is affecting things in AFCENT and how things in AFCENT might be impacting what’s going on in Ukraine. The Russian presence in Syria has become, I would argue, more aggressive since the Ukrainian invasion. And I think that’s driven by a couple of things. It’s driven by some of the personalities of the Russian leadership that is in Syria right now. Some of those Russian general officers, frankly, failed in Ukraine for all the reasons the Gen. Hecker outlined up front. And now they’re in Syria and my assessment is they’re trying to make a name for themselves again and regain a favorable standing within the Russian Federation armed forces.

I don’t think they’ll succeed, but that’s what they’re trying to do. So we’ve seen increased pressure both in the air and on the ground from the Russians. And frankly, it’s a bit concerning where we have forces on the ground and armed Russian aircraft that fly over them. Your Airmen and Guardians are in close contact with those Russians every single day, intercepting them, escorting them, and making sure our forces on the ground remain safe in Syria and Iraq as they continue to fight against ISIS. I also just want to quickly comment on something Gen. Slife said that I think is really important. He was talking about the relationships that the SOF community brings to the broader enterprise.

And right now, we have a deputy combined forces air component commander, a deputy CFAC, for the first time in U.S. Central Command’s history that is a special operator. It’s Maj. Gen. Dave Harris. And sir, I would just say having a SOF operator with that perspective, who has those relationships and that network has been incredibly valuable to us in AFCENT. And I think it could be something that’s valuable to the rest of the Air Force as we capture that unique expertise of our SOF operators who’ve operated in that joint and inter agency environment really since they were company grade officers. So I just wanted to highlight that, sir. Thanks.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Yeah, and that’s a great answer on the regional conflict piece. We’ve argued about this a lot, especially in some of our larger wargames, as to what extent a fight with Russia in EUCOM, really a fight with Russia, and when do you get the other dot coms involved as well? The geographic and the regional and all of the above, because it’s just so important that we get that right and who’s threatened and who’s not. Gentlemen, if you would let me, can we pivot out of the strategic level and back down to the operational level of warfare? And Gen. Hecker, sir, I’d like to start with you. Russia appears never really to have seriously attempted to achieve air superiority or suppression of enemy air defenses, or SEAD as we know it. And this goes against all U.S. doctrine. Any idea why this was the case? And would you assess it as a mistake or just perhaps a deliberate way to employ our airpower different than our conception of airpower? And also what do you think China would make of that decision?

Gen James B. Hecker

Yeah, air superiority is, as Weeble mentioned, is something that we really value in the United States across NATO and really the western world. And we know how important it was, it is, to get. And we’ve had it for a long time. Really, if you look at the last time that one of our Soldiers was killed by an enemy aircraft, that was April 15th, 1953 in the Korean War. So we’ve had air superiority for quite a while. Over the last 20, some can argue 30, years it’s mainly been uncontested and we’ve pretty much just had it. So we’ve got to make sure that we have air superiority and here’s why. Think if the Ukrainians were able to get air superiority at the beginning of the war. Everyone remembers the 25-mile-long armor tanks, et cetera, north of Kyiv. If they had air superiority, all of that would have been destroyed.

You talk about what we did in the Kuwait War 30 years ago, same thing would have happened with them. If Russia would have had air superiority, we wouldn’t have been able to resupply Ukraine. All the stuff that we were giving them as far as HARMs, as far as HIMARS and those kind of things, they would have been interdicted as soon as they got into country and would’ve never reached the Ukrainian soldiers. So you can kind of see how important air superiority is. And if you don’t have it, then the aircraft back off from one another and you end up basically with what you’re seeing today, mainly a land war with 155 artillery and HIMARs going back and forth, schools getting destroyed, malls getting destroyed and casualty rates that just blow away what we had in 20 years in Afghanistan, were blown away within the first month of the war.

That’s what you get if you don’t have air superiority. And we as western countries won’t stand for that. We won’t stand for those casualty rates. So we need to make sure, as we move forward, that we’re able to gain and maintain air superiority. And that’s why things like the operational imperative that Secretary Kendall has of the NGAD, that we need to make sure that that gets through so we don’t end up in a war like this, which is almost back in the World War I days, trench warfare where we have severe casualties, as we move on. Now, why were neither one of them able to get air superiority? It’s primarily because of the integrated air and defense systems that both Ukraine and Russia have. Ukraine got it from Russia a long time ago. Russia knew exactly what they were up against and yet when they tried to take their fighters and their aircraft inside those missile engagement zones, they were shot down. Roughly about 55 Russian fighters have been shot down by the integrated air and missile defense of the Ukraine.

Likewise, Ukraine, when they went across to try to go into Russian occupied territory in Ukraine, they were shot down as well. So what happened is they kind of now stay away from one another and it ends up being a ground war like I talked about. But I think it really shows the importance. Now, these IADs are very hard to get through. We would have a very difficult time, we in NATO, to take down these IADs. But it’s something that we have to master, something that we have to be able to do so that we can make sure that we don’t have our Soldiers and our Marines die from enemy aircraft. And we’ve been able to do that for a long time and we need to make sure that we continue that.

So a lot of times you’ll hear in the press on some of the lessons learned about this war is, “Oh, we need to bolster our Army. We need more weapons. We need more artillery,” and those kind of things. And to the extent a lot of that’s true. But you can’t forget the fact that if you had air superiority, a lot of this war that you’re seeing right now wouldn’t be happening.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Yeah, it’s been fascinating to watch, right? It’s been almost 50 years since two modern air forces collided with modern IADs as well. And what does that mean to our doctrine? And as Gen. Slife wisely said, it’s not just the lessons learned, but the lessons not learned or the lessons you would unlearn if you could. And I know Gen. Tullos is in the room, so there’s probably some good SAS papers to be written here over the next year as this progresses. Because we would be foolish not to learn these lessons and to blindly follow our own doctrine across the cliff. So I really do appreciate those insights. And Gen. Slife, I’m going to pull on that thread you talked about with leveraging partners such as Ukraine. Because we always thought when we countered Russia, it would be a superpower countering Russia. And of course Ukraine is not a NATO partner. Or not in NATO, they’re a NATO partner nation of course. So now using building partnership capacity to counter Russia using a partner at the operational level of war poses some challenges.

For instance, Ukraine has no bombers or really even long-range strike capability. So your SOF warriors had to find an innovative way to advise and assist and actually train during combat to help them with their long-range fires. At the unclassified level, can you share with the audience how your team accomplished some of this in the efforts currently going under way, sir?

Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife

Yeah, I thought in the Chief’s opening comments this morning, it was really interesting when he was talking about innovation. And it strikes me that as Airmen sometimes we run the risk of being affixed by our prefixes. We get affixed by our prefixes. So what do we do with C airplanes? Well, we carry cargo. What do we do with B airplanes? We drop bombs. We define airplanes by their prefixes. And the reality is they’re all just airplanes and they all have different attributes. Some fly fast, some fly slow, some fly high, some fly low, some are visible, some are invisible, some have crews, some don’t. They all have different attributes. And so the question that we have kind of been thinking our way through at AFSOC is how do we use what we have in different ways that is perhaps a little unconstrained by the way we historically think about the use of air power?

And so last December we demonstrated a capability with our partners at the Air Force Research Lab to use a C-130 as a long range precision fires platform. We launched a JASSM long range cruise missile out of the back of a C-130. It flew 600 miles or so over the Gulf of Mexico and destroyed a target out there. A C-130 can carry 12 of these, and that’s the same payload that a B-52 carries. But when you can do that off a 3,000-foot straight stretch of road or a dirt strip, it complicates the adversary’s targeting problems which I think contributes to deterrence. If you feel this capability at scale, a C-17 could carry 36 JASSM class munitions. And so that’s a real, I think, gamechanger when it talks about volume of fire and how do we service the targets that Gen. Hecker might need to service in a kinetic fight.

But more importantly than that, it opens up opportunities for our partners. Many of our partners don’t have the types of airplanes that we historically think about as long range precision fires platforms, but many of them have cargo airplanes. And this capability that we demonstrated requires no aircraft modification, requires no air crew training beyond that which they already do as a matter of course. And so when you can export this capability to our partners, it makes them a much more lethal force that can integrate with us. We’ve done an exercise in Europe in the spring. We’ll be doing another one in the fall alongside our partners at USAFE and some of our NATO allies. And I think this is just an example of the type of innovation that, left to their own devices, Airmen can figure these things out and bring a lot of power to bear.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

That’s fascinating too. Of course we’re not the only nation that’s doing this, all 30 NATO nations, but there’s also beyond, there’s other nations outside the alliance. So were you able to leverage your relationships inside the Special Forces community to kind of herd these cats? Is there deconfliction going on with that, sir?

Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife

Absolutely. The Operational Special Operations component inside of EUCOM is Special Operations Command Europe. And as soon as we demonstrated this capability, it was Special Operations Command Europe that really wanted to employ this capability alongside our partners at the first opportunity.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Yeah, great. Thank you, sir. And Gen. Grynkewich, staying at the operational level just a little longer, it’s become clear that Russia simply is not capable of executing command and control and employing joint fires, at least the way we conceive of it, and the joint scale operations across domains. As a MAJCOM CFAC and the Air Force expert on command and control, were you surprised by this lack of C2 ability and capability and do you think there are leadership lessons there? And also what’s the implication for JADC2 as a concept?

Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich

Yeah, really good question, Weeble. So I think I was a little surprised at the Russian inability to execute what we would really view as a joint campaign. And if you look at the Russian scheme of maneuver, I would argue it’s probably somewhat informed by their experience in Syria where they did not fight as a joint force and they took the wrong lessons from the last war. And that’s the danger all of us face every time. But there was no overall commander in Russia. There was no integration between an air campaign, if you would, in the way that Airmen think of it, and ground maneuver. And there was no exercise of mission command, which as the Chief mentioned this morning, is one of the key tenets that enables our Airmen to innovate and act at speed and scale very rapidly. So I think some of it is a fact that they took away the wrong lessons. I think some of it is driven by the Russian system of autocracy and we see that manifest fairly regularly.

I also just want to go back very quickly to something Gen. Hecker was talking about, and that’s the importance of air superiority. And what I would do is contrast the situation in Ukraine that he described with the last time that we had lethal contact between U.S. forces and Russians, which was in Syria a couple of years ago. In that engagement, we were enabled by SOF forces, both in the air and on the ground. We had air superiority and the Russian offensive, led primarily by a private military contractor, was wholly unsuccessful and several hundred Russians died in the assault and were obliterated. It was the United States’ ability to integrate joint fires across artillery from Army units on the ground and from aircraft in the air, whether conventional United States Air Force or Special Operations aircraft, that were firing on those Russian positions, that ended that engagement almost before it started. That’s the value of air superiority, in my mind. And it would be a very different conflict, I would predict, as Gen. Hecker said, if the Russians had taken the lessons of that engagement in particular and brought them forward.

countering russian aggression — Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, commander of the Ninth Air Force, at the Countering Russian Aggression panel at the Air, Space & Cyber Conference at the Gaylord Hotel in Maryland, September 19, 2022. Photo: Air & Space Forces Magazine

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Yeah, and I think the other piece of command and control that we want to address is the command and control of our NCO corps, right? And we forget sometimes that that is the thing that separates us from the authoritarian regimes that are out there is we invest in a very strong NCO corps and junior leadership. And we push leadership down and we push decision-making down. So when it came to command and control, when we were able to take out the Russian nodes, they were inactive. They were not able to function. But one of the things that the Ukrainians, who have done a lot of training with us, were able to do is they are empowered and they have that. And so I don’t think we should ever lose sight of the fact that the democracies of the world, not just in NATO but across, and the empowering of people and building an NCO corps and building a corps of junior leaders who can take mission type orders and carry on, even in a command and control denied environment, is something we should not lose sight of because authoritarian governments just can’t do that.

Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich

And Weeble, if I extend the analogy or the comparison back to that engagement that I’m referring to, that was not something that was centrally managed by a brain in the air operation center. That was Airmen on the ground and in the air making tactical decisions and meeting the CFAC’s intent, which was to stop the Russian assault on our forces in southern Syria. That’s the only order that had to be given and they carried it out magnificently.

Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife

Yeah, it was a tech sergeant on the ground that was coordinating those fires. There is no other military on the planet that empowers mid-grade NCOs with that kind of authority.

Gen James B. Hecker

Yeah, we often, when we talk about the United States enlisted corps, NCO corps, they’re our asymmetric advantage. And they are, they’re the best that the world has to offer. But let me tell you, the Ukrainians are pretty darn good too. I had an opportunity to go watch them train and learn how to operate HIMARS. And these were enlisted folks, been in three to seven years. They’ve been working artillery in the Ukraine and now they come up to a totally new system, mechanized mobile computers. And in about three weeks we teach them how to use it. And they’re motivated. And when you talk to them, they are innovative, big time. And when I was at a chance to talk to them, I go, “Hey, how’s it going to go? Are you nervous about going back?” And they’re, “No, we’re not nervous at all. We know exactly what we’re fighting for. We’re fighting for our nation.” He goes, “Russia, they have no idea what they’re fighting for.” And that’s the difference between our NCOs, Ukraine’s NCOs, western NCOs and a country like Russia.

Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife

Eight years ago, after the Ukrainians lost the Crimea and lost some territory in the Donbas, one of the most consequential decisions that the Ukrainian military made was they wanted to professionalize their NCO corps. And they implemented things that for us are just a matter of course. Things like professional military education along the way for your NCOs, empowerment, authority and responsibility pushed down to lower levels. Those were the things that for the last eight years we have quietly been working with the Ukrainian military on and I think it has made all the difference. I completely agree with you, Gen. Hecker.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

No, yeah, you’re exactly right about that, sir. That’s one of the reasons why the jamming wasn’t as bad as we thought it was going to be. Because of course jamming works both ways. And I won’t say our forces, but the Ukrainians in particular were able to operate when both sides were blind better so we couldn’t lose sight of that. And I think that’s exactly what Chief Brown was getting at when he talks about, “We’ve done this before,” right? In innovation and empowering Airmen, we’re seeing the power of that in action right now. Gen. Slife, if I could stay with you. What lessons learned from the 20 years in the counter violent extremist organizations did we apply to this war? Positive and negatives, and were we prepared frankly for what we saw and what we’re seeing now in the role again of SOF and supporting as opposed to the supported role? I know you touched on that internally in your earlier answer, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to pull on that thread just a little bit more, sir.

Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife

Yeah, I think I’ve hit on several of the key things that we learned, was the value of integration across not just the military but the executive branch, country teams, the interagency, the intelligence community, those types of things, I think that that’s an enduring lesson learned. I think we have learned about the value of partner engagement. I talked a little bit about what we’ve been doing in Ukraine for the last eight years. I think that that makes a difference. The other thing that I think we saw the beginnings of the outline emerge over the course of the last 20 years is if you rewind the clock to 20 years ago, I don’t think many among us would have envisioned the emergence of space and cyber and information operations as warfighting domains. I don’t think we appreciated that 20 years ago. But when you look at the reality of 2022, it is absolutely clear that those are consequential domains of operation.

And so the question becomes when we talk about integrated by design, how do we integrate those things into our day-to-day operations at the outset and not as bolt-ons later on? And so when you look at some of the force design work that we’re going through inside of AFSOC to enable us to be more effective in the theaters as we support the broader joint force, we are looking at tactical units of action that integrate all those things, space, cyber information, intelligence and SOF. Those five ingredients I think make for a powerful combination that will be transformational in the future.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Yeah, it really is interesting when you put it that way because it’s all based on human spirit and training, right? The human weapon system. And we’ve talked about this a couple times, all three of you have. So you can buy all the B-21s you want, or all the joint strike fighters, but if you don’t invest in your people, provide the quality training and that growth development which the Chief talked about, they don’t fly themselves, they don’t fight themselves, it’s that integration level that really is fascinating. And it’s been a joy to watch the Ukrainians, under the leadership of your SOF warriors and other nations, kind of unite. Our nation figured out about two centuries ago that a bunch of angry farmers fighting for their nation is a pretty powerful fighting force. They just need to be led and pointed in the direction. And your team is doing that, sir. And it’s been amazing to watch.

Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife

I think if I could just follow up, one of the things that I think will be critical to us as an Air Force going forward is that we need to have some fundamental design principles as we think about how we organize ourselves for this operating environment. It’s not even the future operating environment, it’s the current operating environment. And I would suggest that some of what we have learned over the last 20 years would point us towards three design principles that we ought to be thinking about. And so the Chief talked about force generation, Wing A staff, some of those things. I think there are three things that need to be embedded into all that. The first one is decentralization. For reasons that made all the sense in the world at the time, we have heavily centralized across the Air Force over the last 30 years since the end of the Cold War. And I think now is probably a time for some decentralization.

Number two, empowerment. We see the impact that empowered mid-grade NCOs and company grade officers can have if they’re empowered. The Chief talked about mission command. That’s a key component of mission command is empowerment and trust down the chain of command. And so I think that has to be a design principle. And number three, we have to organize ourselves around missions and not around functions. We have to organize ourselves around missions and not around functions. And our most effective organizations, the organizations that have the greatest esprit d’corps, are the ones that have a clear sense of mission and not simply a function that they perform in some larger nebulous mission that’s integrated elsewhere. So the more we can push that down inside the Air Force, I think the more effective we’ll be.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Perfect. Thank you, sir. We have a few moments left. Lt. Gen. Grynkewich, your final thoughts for the audience?

Lt. Gen. Alex Grynkewich

I guess a couple of things. I’ll go back to the strategic level for a minute and just the Secretary talked about the pacing threat being China. And I think while this is a panel on Russia, I’d like to take the opportunity to just note that, again, strategic competition doesn’t confine itself to the combatant command boundary. I would think that Gen. Hecker is just as concerned about Chinese influence and what the Chinese are doing in Europe and Africa as I am about what they’re doing in Central Command and as Gen. Slife is thinking about globally. And so this is an opportunity I think as we think about this Russian problem, which is a global problem, where we’re thinking about managing escalation in multiple theaters to take some real key lessons for our Air Force about exactly how we think about a global problem like China as a rising and revisionist power.

At the operational level, I’d highlight the importance of changing our paradigm in two ways. The first is integrated by design. The air operations center in Al Udeid, which many of you have likely served in, has been a great example of that over the years where we have so many allied and partner nations who are integrated there upfront. So we’ve done well in that regard. You flip it over though and you talk about mission command, and I know that there’s many who have flown in particular in the AOR who are likely frustrated by the CFAC being the 1,000-mile screwdriver or 2,000-mile screwdriver that’s micromanaging your tactical decisions.

Those are things that we’re working on in AFCENT and experimenting with as we execute Agile Combat Employment, as we have our air expeditionary wing commanders run cluster bases to try to provide the Air Force with the experience that we can from being in a theater that’s in contact with an enemy every single day, generating combat power every single day, using an A staff using Agile Combat Employment and thinking about how we apply mission command. So again, it’s a global problem and we need to think about it globally, both at the operational and the strategic level.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Thank you, sir. Gen. Slife, your closing comments?

Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife

I would just say that one of the things that we’re talking about quite a bit in inside of AFSOC these days is that the first part of AFSOC is AF. We are the Air Force’s Special Operations Command. We’ve spent the last 20 years serving as the Air Force component to SOCOM, necessarily so. But I think really our value proposition for the next 20 years is to be the SOF component of the United States Air Force. And so this really underpins a lot of our thinking. And I’m just pleased to have the opportunity to be up on stage with other Airmen talking about these things. Thanks.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Yes, sir. Thank you. Gen. Hecker, sir, you get the final word.

Gen James B. Hecker

Well, thanks. Our last two National Defense Strategies through the last two administrations has really emphasized allies and partners. And it couldn’t be more important now. As we take our fighter force when I came in and it’s less than half of what it was when I came in. Bomber force is less than a third, two-thirds less, than when I came in. We really need our allies and partners to do things like gain and maintain air superiority. And if we take the lead like we did here with the Ukraine, if we will give up some secrets, they will follow. And what we’ve seen is we’ve had three additional countries order F-35s since the invasion February 24th of ’22. Right now, we have 120 F-35s in NATO. By 2034, we’re supposed to have around 600. And we need every one of them and we need to be interoperable and we need to work with them to make sure that we can take out the IADs and gain air superiority on day one should Russia decide to expand this war.

And it’s more important now than it ever has been. So that’s what we want all, when we go through and we talk to industry and we do these things, that’s something that we need you guys to help us out with. Help us out with our allies and partners in giving them the things they do, integration in advance, like we talked about before, so they’re buying the right things. Thank you very much.

Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart

Great words, sir. Thank you. And team, thank you for your leadership, your sacrifice, and this inspiring conversation and for joining us here today at AFA’s first Air, Space & Cyber Warfare Symposium. And for our audience, thank you for joining us for this panel on countering Russian aggression. We hope you have an amazing rest of your day and a fantastic and incredible AFA. Thank you.