Towberman: “Yes, sir. So, so, you know, we’ll start with, you know, we worked through this, we did crowdsource lots and lots of ideas. And then we kind of, kind of systematically went through them, with sort of some assumptions up front. We knew we had to be credible in the joint force, but we wanted something that was built, kind of forever. And that was tricky, right? Because if you’re trying to plan for something to be relevant and sticky, if you will, 100 years from now, how do you do that? How do you guess right? And what we didn’t want to do is be the Jetsons, or the Edsel, right, and make some trendy, you know, fantasy-based guess at the future. We wanted to kind of look historically, through the lens of, hey, if something has lasted 1,000 years, it’s probably going to last 100 years. And around the world, and throughout the centuries, the same sort of ranks have shown themselves over and over again in enlisted, in enlisted forces, you know, everywhere. So we were kind of, that’s where we were. We thought, hey, this more traditional noncommissioned officer ranks is probably the way to go, where we want to be bold is in the way that we use them, the way that we grow them, the way that we manage that force. And so the specialist ranks are E1 through E4. We were very deliberate to say, hey, we’re not going to call them first, second, third class, we’re going to treat them more as, as one group, where the levels within that group are mostly in the control of the specialists. So it’s gonna take us a while to really tease this out, and how these competency-based approach to promotion works. But ideally, you know, ideally, long term what we see happening is that I come in, and when I can prove I can do x, y and z, then I get promoted. That a time-dominant model where I have to wait around regardless of what competencies I might have come in with, regardless of what competencies I might have developed faster than my peers, that I get to kind of step up when I show that I’m ready for the next level. And so we’re excited for this kind of leveling concept, and why we just are saying, hey, specialist 1, 2, 3, 4. Sergeant, our first NCO rank, the first place where institutionally we’re going to say, hey, you’re now really, truly responsible for the lives and career of other people, and by the way, their loved ones as well. We really wanted to put this strong servant rank of sergeant right there, to say, at the first level of supervision, there’s nothing more important than serving your team and their, their family and loved ones, and so from there, it looks like the Air Force, as everyone has reminded me, and that’s not because we didn’t move away from the Air Force, it’s if we walk through on a rank-by-rank, and Technical Sergeant, maybe more than any other, was where we really felt like this is what matters. We want technicians. We want technical experts. This is the definitive rank: Technical Sergeant. We’ve left the door open. If we decide to go with technical tracks, and we might. We had a conversation just this morning about what that might look like, and perhaps, if I want to kind of just spend my, my life on an ops floor, and that’s what I’m really into, and I’m really, really good at it, and I want to stay really good at it, and I don’t want to do some other things, but I want to stick around, and I want to be invested in more, then maybe we go Technical Sergeant, you know, one, two, and we step up from there, like we’re doing with the specialist ranks in the junior enlisted. So we’ve left the door open for those things, and, and we feel that we did pretty well. We’re understandable to the joint force, it’s, it’s um, it’s able to absorb us into that joint fight without confusing anyone, and, and we think we’ve given some real kind of purpose, to our junior enlisted ranks, and then to our, our first NCO ranks along the way, to really say, hey this is why you’re here, this is your reason for existing, and let’s try to help you remember that every day by the rank that you’re wearing on your sleeve, or your chest, or wherever. And insignias are, are not based, so we’re about to roll out some test rank insignias next month, we’re excited about that, to get feedback and figure out what that insignia looks like in new uniforms, and all those things coming up later in the year. So that’ll be exciting as well. I probably took all of Gen. Thompson’s time away, but there’s so much to talk about with those enlisted ranks, and we’re very proud of the way that we went.”