Air Force Gives Raytheon $39 Million For Air Defense Software Prototype

Air Force Gives Raytheon $39 Million For Air Defense Software Prototype

Oct. 3, 2023 | By David Roza

The Air Force awarded $39 million to Raytheon, the defense business unit of RTX, on Oct. 3 to develop a prototype software system to command and control air base defenses against aerial threats like cruise missiles and drones. The prototype uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze threat information from sensors such as radar, then recommend to operators the best defense option, which could be missiles or other weapons.

“We’ll bring our unique decision aids along with many partner components to allow for increased efficiency and effectiveness in a complex attack, while decreasing the manpower burden to operate the system,” Paul Ferraro, president of air power at Raytheon, said in a press release.

Though the U.S. Army has traditionally led air defense, the Air Force is becoming more involved as the branch seeks to defend small air bases dispersed across the Pacific from small drones and cruise missiles. The extensive use of such weapons in the Russian invasion of Ukraine has sparked increased focus on building layered air defenses that can defeat multiple kinds of threats.

“Air defense isn’t going to win the war for you,” Tom Karako, director of the missile defense project and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in a seminar on the Ukraine air war in November. “But the lack of it could lose it pretty quick.”

The $39 million award comes about a year after Raytheon and the Norwegian company Kongsberg Defense & Aerospace, in partnership with the Air Force Research Laboratory, tested command and control software on a National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, a machine that can fire several kinds of missiles to hit targets at short, medium, or long range. 

During the test, U.S. Army radars fed targeting information to a Raytheon Battle Space Command and Control Center (BC3), a software that connects sensors and weapons systems, analyzes threats, and recommends defense options. The BC3 gave those options to operators at a Kongsberg Fire Distribution Center.

“The operator in the FDC used that information to close the kill chain by selecting and firing the most effective missile from the NASAMS multi-missile canister launcher,” Raytheon wrote in a press release at the time.

The system’s open architecture should allow it to pair with future sensors and weapons. Though the test last year involved AIM-9X and AMRAAM missiles, the Air Force is looking into electronic warfare and directed energy to counter large numbers of small drones with a lower per-shot cost than the AIM-9 or AMRAAM, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each. In the Oct. 3 release, Raytheon said it would build on the lessons learned from the NASAMS experiment as the company refines its BC3 software.

F-16s Deploy to Poland to Bolster NATO’s Eastern Flank

F-16s Deploy to Poland to Bolster NATO’s Eastern Flank

Oct. 3, 2023 | By Unshin Lee Harpley

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine grinds on, the U.S. Air Force deployed four F-16 fighters to neighboring Poland on Oct. 3, keeping up the service’s continuous presence on NATO’s eastern flank.

The F-16s came from the 52nd Fighter Wing at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, and arrived at Powidz Air Base, Poland, to replace four F-15E Strike Eagles from the 48th Fighter Wing at RAF Lakenheath, U.K., according to a release from U.S. Air Forces in Europe.

The F-15Es executed NATO air policing missions at Lask Air Base, Poland, starting in Nov. 2022. F-22 Raptors from the 94th Fighter Squadron at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va., also rotated through Powidz Air Base starting in April.

“Operating from forward locations allows U.S. Air Force Airmen to live, train, and operate alongside European counterparts while enabling NATO’s collective defense capabilities,” the USAFE release noted. “This capability is critical for a timely and coordinated response, if and when called upon.”

Powidz, located in central Poland, is also near the Baltic Sea. The F-22s that deployed there this spring also conducted an Agile Combat Employment exercise in Estonia—the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania don’t have robust air forces of their own and rely on NATO allies to conduct air policing missions in the region to deter Russia.

On the same day the F-16s arrive in Poland, U.S. President Joe Biden participated in a conference call with allies and partners including Polish President Andrzej Duda of Poland and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in a conference call.

During the call, which also include leaders from Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Romania, the U.K., and more, the leaders discussed “efforts to provide Ukraine with the ammunition and weapons systems it needs to defend its territory against Russian aggression, [and] to strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses to protect its critical infrastructure from Russia’s aerial assaults,” according to the White House statement.

SPACECOM Hosts Multinational Tabletop Exercise as Allied Cooperation in Space Ramps Up

SPACECOM Hosts Multinational Tabletop Exercise as Allied Cooperation in Space Ramps Up

Oct. 3, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

The U.S. and its allies are working together on plans to protect their space assets, as the domain will likely be contested in the event of a conflict.

Last month, U.S. Space Command hosted a multinational tabletop exercise with some of America’s key allies. The U.S., United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and France “explored areas of opportunity to support the safety and sustainability of space through increased mission assurance and resilience through a multinational force” during a four-day exercise held Sept. 18-22 at SPACECOM’s headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., according to a Sept. 29 news release.

SPACECOM did not say what scenarios the exercise envisioned. However, the combatant command did outline some goals of the tabletop exercise, including “increasing intelligence and information sharing, solidifying a standardized multinational command and control structure, and expanding mission sets.”

Allied participants praised the exercise. Canada’s participation represented the country’s “commitment to defend and protect our space capabilities, which includes working with allies and partners to ensure our continuous access to space,” Col. Frédéric Guénette, the senior representative from the Royal Canadian Air Force, said in a statement. The exercise “gave us the opportunity to work with other nations to explore how we can leverage our partnerships to better contribute to the safety and sustainability of the space domain.”

America’s military space leaders have been traveling the globe recently to build partnerships and help bring allies into the fold in an often highly classified domain, noting there needs to be increased information sharing in the future. In July, SPACECOM’s commander Army Gen. James Dickinson conducted a weeklong trip to Europe to strengthen space cooperation with America’s allies on the continent. In May, Space Force Lt. Gen. DeAnna Burt, the deputy chief of space operations for operations, cyber, and nuclear, visited NATO’s Space Center with similar goals. And last month, Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman engaged in high-level talks in Japan.

While the Space Force and Space Command are separate entities, both have been looking to bring America’s allies into space training exercises. Back in March, the USSF’s Space Training and Readiness Command (STARCOM) conducted its annual wargame, which brought in the allies that participated in SPACECOM’s recent tabletop exercise as well as Japan.

Some of America’s allies, including the U.K. and France, have set up their own Space Commands. France is also home to NATO’s Space Center of Excellence. During a visit to Washington D.C. last month, the head of the French Air and Space Force, Gen. Stéphane Mille, noted that there is now broad recognition that “there could be attacks” in space in the future.

“The threats are spreading into space,” Mille said in response to a question from Air & Space Forces Magazine. “So this is, of course, what we are thinking about. What we want to do is have different options in space.”

“We are working all together with U.S. SPACECOM to know how to defend all of that, to exchange information on what’s happening in space, because a lot of things are happening in space,” he added. “And we will continue to do [that] because we want to protect the use of space for all peoples.”

Watch, Read: CMSSF Towberman on ‘Your Space Force, Your Future’

Watch, Read: CMSSF Towberman on ‘Your Space Force, Your Future’

Oct. 2, 2023

In his final keynote address before retiring as Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force, Roger A. Towberman reflected on the progress of the Space Force and the growth still ahead at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Sept. 12, 2023. Watch the video or read the transcript below.

CMSSF Roger A. Towberman

Thank you so much. Oh my goodness. I haven’t even said anything awesome yet. You guys got to sit down, please. Thank you. Thank you so much. It’s a big week, couple days. If I don’t screw up this keynote, I might make it to retirement. So I’m hoping. My fingers are crossed. Thank you AFA, thank you senior leaders that are here. Thanks for the kind words from each of you. General Brown, I truly appreciate it. It’s been my absolute honor. General Saltzman, every day I come to work and it’s just amazing to be your teammate and I just really appreciate you keeping me around for a couple weeks. And Secretary, just thanks so much. You’ve changed the way we do business and it’s been fantastic not just to see you operate in general, but the way that you’ve been inclusive of Jo and me. It really, truly matters and I appreciate it.

And Jo, I love you. A couple more days and then you’re not going to find me, but I’m going to love you until then. Thanks to the Gaylord for always putting on a fantastic event and thanks to the Guardians and Airmen that, for whatever strange reason, think maybe I’m going to say something meaningful enough that you would sit here and listen to me. I appreciate that we fill up the room. I appreciate that you come to events like this. I appreciate that you invest in yourselves. And finally, thanks to all of those deployed and all of those employed in place, all the work and stiffs that are letting the rest of us screw around this week. So thanks to all of them back home and in places where the action happens.

So everybody’s been showing videos, and I had this idea a few years ago because we’ve been doing something incredible, standing up a new service, and I’ve been asked to do a lot of the human capital stuff and this continues to be the conversations all the time. How are we recruiting? How are we retaining? How are we developing people? And so for the last couple years, I’ve had the public affairs guys sneak cameras out now and again, and we’ve been putting together documentary footage of our journey, and I’m proud to be able to show you a little bit of a teaser of the film we’ve been making. I’m very excited about it. I do have to warn you that if you’re in the video, just be happy that you’re in the video. Don’t take it personally. It’s the real world and real things happen, so I just want to show you this. This is the Space Force’s talent management journey documentary. Let’s see what we got.

Video

Baseball isn’t just numbers. It’s not science. If it was, then anybody could do what we’re doing, but they can’t because they don’t know what we know.

I’m asking you to be OK not spending money that I don’t have. We’re going to work within the constraints that we have and you’re going to get out and do the best job that you can recruiting new players.

You’re just talking, talking la, la, la, like this is business as usual. It’s not.

We’re trying to solve a problem here.

Not like this, you’re not. You’re not even looking at the problem.

We’re very aware of the problem.

OK, good. What’s the problem?

Look, Billy, we all understand what the problem is. You’re discounting what scouts have done for 150 years. Now, there are intangibles that only baseball people understand.

You don’t have a crystal ball. You can’t look at a kid and predict his future any more than I can. I’ve sat at those kitchen tables with you and listened to you tell those parents, “When I know, I know. And when it comes to your son, I know,” and you don’t.

What I see is an imperfect understanding of where runs come from. Using the stats the way we read them, we’ll find value players that nobody else can see. People are overlooked for a variety of biased reasons and perceived flaws. Age, appearance, personality. There is an epidemic failure within the game to understand what is really happening, and this leads people who run Major League Baseball teams to misjudge their players and mismanage their teams. Your goal shouldn’t be to buy players, your goal should be to buy wins.

This is a process. It’s a process. It’s a process. Listen man, I’ve been in this game a long time. I’m not in it for the record, I’ll tell you that. I’m not in it for a ring. Any other team wins the World Series, good for them. But if we win on our budget with this team, we’ll have changed the game and that’s what I want. I think the question we should be asking is do you believe in this thing or not?

CMSSF Roger A. Towberman

Do you believe in this thing or not? So obviously ‘Moneyball,’ which should be required reading for all Guardians by the way, maybe for everyone that works in the Department of Defense, except the chair scene. That’s actual security camera footage in the E-ring of my office. The rest of it we pulled from a movie, a movie about changing the game. And every day that we come to work in my office, we come to work to change the game, to change the world, and that’s how we look at it. That’s how we talk about it. And you’ve heard from everyone else how important this is, and let me say it in yet another way, that we need the stuff and we need the leaders.

If you think that’s the only thing that we need or the most important thing we need, then you’ve got a misunderstanding of where runs come from because the enlisted force of this nation is the greatest military advantage in history. And the object, the goal is not to buy those players, it’s to win. And that means that we see them not as a means to an end, but the end itself. It means that we see our advantage as the advantage it is, and we invest in a value proposition that matters to them. If we lose that focus, if we set out to buy end strength instead of win, then the winning is at risk, and it’s so important that we understand that and get that right.

This has been an amazing journey and it’s been filled with amazing people, so I thought if it was OK with you, we’ll just go over a few things that we’ve done and learned, and mostly a recap of the wonderful people that have helped us in our little Moneyball startup. And so when we started this whole thing, we knew we needed values. It seemed like a good place to start. That’s where everyone should start. And so we got a team together, people like Chief Christina Haley, Chief Shane Pilgrim, who both retired now and moved on to fantastic new lives. Colonel Retired Jason Lamb, Mr. Chang Suh, experts in what we needed to do.

We came up with the ideal, the new CSO gets in and he says, “Let’s amplify the Guardian spirit,” and we said, “Funny you should say that, sir, because we got another book. Let’s call it The Guardian Spirit,” Dr. Matt Job, that helped us so much with that. But maybe more importantly, because you send all messages at all times and we didn’t just sit in back rooms with these experts, and they’re experts, make no mistake, but they didn’t do it on their own. We had Guardians every step of the way telling us what they valued, telling us what they wanted to value, telling us what was important to them, giving us feedback on our process. 18 months, and they turned out OK. Our four Cs matter to me, I know they matter to all our Guardians. What makes them unique is not what they are.

A lot of organizations have values, all the services have values. What makes them unique is that we have an opportunity to weave those values into everything that we do because we started with them. Our annual awards, the Polaris Awards are given for living up to our core values, competing against the standard that is accessible to every Guardian. How close can you get to Guardian perfection and courage or character or connection or commitment? We’re so proud of the work that was done, and folks like Chief Joey Williams and Chief Jess Gray, Chief Jeff Grela, Master Sergeant Fulton on the S1P team that helped make all that happen. It’s hard work. I didn’t know that we couldn’t just recognize people, we had to write policies and we had to coordinate them. And for some reason, lawyers care who I think has courage, I don’t know why. I love them.

And we were able to celebrate our first Polaris Award winners last year with the Schriever chapter out in Los Angeles, the AFA, and truly, truly appreciate them being great hosts and we look forward in February to celebrate it on a more national stage. And we’re very excited about the future, and we hope soon that our Polaris Awards will have the same eminence and the same pizazz and celebration that we have here for 12 OAY. We also were able to weave our core values into our promotions, rewriting the board charge to focus on those core values to say, “Hey, whatever you are doing, you should be doing it through these four Cs. So hey, promotion board, let’s value them through that. Let’s look at those things. Let’s get rid of the tests. Let’s be honest.”

If we’re going to use our senior master sergeants and our chiefs broadly as leaders, then why would we promote them inside their stove pipes? And we tore those down. People like Rob Romer and Chief Suwanee Carvalho, helping us put that together, and it matters. Brand new. Where’s Ana? Did she put on chief yet? Is she here? Still senior, I think Ana Franklin, brand new to the S1P team. So happy to have her. But these are the people that have been working it. We also weaved our core values into the way we develop our folks, and if you visit Space Force basic training, it’s the most beautiful, undiluted Guardian experience that you could possibly have. It’s amazing to see what the team has done down there. Major Emory and Senior Chua, our BMT team, Chief Ming that retired from Delta 1, they’ve just made an experience that feels different. And to those new Guardians, that’s what matters. They want to feel different.

Chief Britton’s here. I don’t know if Senior Brooks is here, but we’ve got our enlisted PME Center of Excellence out at Vosser in Colorado, and they’re doing incredible things, practically perfect Guardian experience. BMT is hard to match. But what they’re doing there, to make that an experience that matters to Guardians in a variety of ways. To meet them here and change their lives, knowing that fundamentally, that’s part of all of our value propositions. All of that falling under the purview of our S1D team, which is incredible, led by Mr. Turner, who’s fantastic and is never anywhere without his chiefs. Chief Bobby Scott, Chief Jason Childers, who now we’ve moved up to work with Ms. Kelly, but soon we’ll have Amber Ambramowski will be there to replace. She’s got a big fan club. But they’re really making a difference.

Remember that we develop Guardians in an ecosystem and any part of that ecosystem that gets tweaked changes everything else, and that you can approach that ecosystem one thing at a time. You can’t talk about BMT only, you can’t talk about recruiting only. You can’t talk about promotions only because you’re always talking about all of it. And so they’ve got this cool Chiclet chart that they’re working like a heat map where if somebody wants to change BMT, the other parts of the ecosystem most closely correlating to that light up red. So you’d be like, “OK, let’s get that expert in. If this is going to change recruiting, let’s get a recruiting expert in before we tweak basic training. If this is going to change PME, let’s get a PME expert in.” So we’re trying to pay attention to this ecosystem.

Also, as you guys have seen, it’s so exciting because the wear test is happening. There’s so many more Space Force. Well, they’re all Space Force uniforms, whether you’re wearing in the Air Force chassis or the new Space Force uniform, but it’s so good to see the new uniforms around. And so we shaped the way that we looked. And one person in particular, Captain Chignola, has done so much. It’s hard to describe how hard this young man has worked in his own time because he wanted to, to help us design the uniforms, to help us design the patches. He was always there, always helping, and his fingerprints are all over how we look and what we’re proud of as emblems of our heritage, our heraldry. Ms. Cathy Lovelady has been there every step of the way as well. I don’t know if Ms. Lovelady’s here, but she’s been awesome.

So the wear testing is ongoing. I am promised, I am certain that we will have PT gear by the spring broadly available, and it’s awesome and everyone will be jealous because it looks really cool, and it’s comfortable and you’ll want to work out in it. And speaking of working out in it, we also with the help of AFRL, Dr. Christensen, my man Shep, Carl Sheppard there, we’ve got our HHA study ongoing. And what we’ve already learned is that it’s a little bit about fitness requirements. It’s a little bit about commitment to mastering myself, but it’s a lot about connection. Guardians can’t wait to go clown each other on social media over what’s happening on their apps. The friendly competition, it’s almost impossible to avoid when you connect people towards a single goal. They immediately team around it. And so we’re already seeing this and by that measure, the study is just incredibly successful already. Ms. Height has been a part of that and I mentioned Dr. Christensen.

Holistic and continuous. That’s how we live. That’s how we should measure how well we’re living, not episodic, asymmetric. It’s always happening, so let’s check on it all the time. It’s going great. Our values also drove our talent management, somewhat like the movie clips sometimes. It can be a little frustrating to want to do things differently, but our talent management boards are proving incredibly successful. I see a path where it’s possible to live in a world without non-vol assignments, to live in a world without programs like EFMP because you don’t need to do that because you’re going to consider every single person’s family situation every single time. So I don’t need a program that somebody has to qualify for. Chief Bass and I learned recently that apparently, if you have a dependent parent, they don’t qualify for EFMP consideration. So here you go, bring your parent into your home to take care of them because they’re sick but whatever they have doesn’t qualify, I guess they’re not a family member in the eyes of policy. I see a path to getting rid of all of those things. I can imagine it.

So we had a lot of people that have helped us with the talent management, and you can see them there somewhere. There they are. There’s Rod Reyes, R2, and Dan Streeter and Sergeant Hircock, Sergeant Lee, and Sergeant Barker, and Sergeant Chapman. Dr. Anderson there, who gave us incredible insight, especially when it came to picking apart Sergeant Bentivegna’s head before the boss hired him. But she really helped us understand how personalities affect how teams are built and what we would look for in good teammates and how once a team is put together, how they’ll mitigate weaknesses and capitalize on strengths. None of the things we’re doing will matter if we don’t communicate well. And I know General Saltzman talked earlier today about Sergeant Terry and the incredible work that they were doing with the Guardian One app.

I won’t rehash all of that, but in addition to that, Dr. Costa, the CTIO, is putting out a newsletter to the force. Ms. Kelly in the S1 is putting out a newsletter, Mr. Turner and S1D is putting out a newsletter. We’re doing everything we can to communicate and we’re doing everything that we can to remind people that the burden of transparency is knowledge. I think sometimes we forget that. We think we want to know things, but once you know things, you got to carry that around. And back to the movie clips, carrying stuff around can be heavy because sometimes it’s not going smoothly and it’s frustrating, but it’s a pretty universal truth all over the world, all throughout history, man was super happy and then they discovered knowledge and then they were miserable. This is just a normal kind of legend.

So we’re going to keep being transparent, but keep understanding that the more you know, then sometimes the more frustrated you might become. The boss puts out the C-notes, I’ve been trying to do podcasts. I know Chief Bentivegna is going to keep doing them. We’re doing everything we can to talk to you, everything we can to communicate and be open. Keep holding us accountable, keep making us keep those promises. Besides formal communication, there’s also informal communication. And because it’s September, which is Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month, there’s a young man, I won’t dox him, as the kids say. Well, there’s a young man on Reddit who’s been one of the key moderators, maybe the first moderator of both the Air Force subreddit and the Space Force subreddit. He’s a Space Force officer, he’s a great guy.

400,000 people visit those subreddits and in 2022, that community made up of Guardians and Airmen intervened 40 different times when suicidal ideations were posted. 40 times, lives have been saved because people in their spare time want to give other people a voice. And so SilentD, I know you’re out there somewhere, I appreciate you. So what’s next? We’ve got a lot of stuff. We talked about the ideal, we talked about the Guardian spirit. We’ve got a draft of a Guardian handbook in work from some folks at Delta 9 who got the ball rolling. I wrote their names down, I don’t know if any of them are here. Sergeant Todd Richardson, Sergeant Alyssa Ruiz, Sergeant Megan Otto, Sergeant Dillon Frick, and all under the leadership of Tech Sergeant Scott McMullen. I don’t know if any of those guys are here or otherwise, Amber, you got to stand up on their behalf.

Audience

McMullen is here.

CMSSF Roger A. Towberman

Where is he? Appreciate you. So the handbook will take the Guardian spirit and continue to amplify it specific to our enlisted force to say, “Hey, this is what these promises, which are beautiful.” I’m telling you that I don’t know that I’ve ever in 33 years seen a more perfect single page document than our Guardian commitment. And if all any of us ever did was make and keep the 12 promises as team leader and make and keep the 12 promises as team member, man, it’d be a pretty awesome team. But we are going to take that handbook and we’ll say, “Hey, this is what those 24 promises mean for specialists. This is what those 24 promises mean for NCOs, et cetera.”

We also had a team from Delta 2 and I don’t know, is Chief Burkhead here? I know she is. Is any of your team here, do you know? They’re not here, but I think we got a picture. So Sergeant Boyenga, Sergeant Countrymen and Sergeant Lamb Sanchez, they came up during our last space enlisted education development panel and they briefed their idea on a fully qualified promotion system, and it was awesome. A promotion system that puts promotions in the hands of the Guardian. A promotion system that ends competition against each other and encourages cooperation with each other, where in a world where I can get to the rank of sergeant on my own by meeting certain competency requirements, or maybe I can get there faster by teaming up with my teammates and we all get there quicker. So we’re excited about that possibility.

We have some work that’s being done on new evaluation forms, which I cannot wait to see roll out. I don’t think, they’re not coming in two days, are they? No. So I’ll still get my last EPR written on a form that chief passed throughout, you guys don’t even have it anymore. That’ll be my last EPR, but we’ll pull it out of the trash and we’ll use it. I’m sure it’ll be awesome AF. AF for Air Force. It’ll be awesome Air Force. But it’s coming. It’s coming. We’re looking at ways to meet your value proposition because you deserve for us to listen to you. You deserve for us to hear you. And all of these things have to happen, but if nothing else, I hope you see how many people have been working so hard to get the stuff that’s already been given, and how much the rank and file are a part of our process and will continue to be.

You know what? I had this, I don’t know where we came up with the idea, but I was in Connecticut a couple weeks ago on leave and somebody thought it might be a cool idea to jump in my Sprinter van with me and ride from Brooklyn back to DC and interview me the whole way. I don’t know what I was thinking, but we had fun and it was a good drive. But the conversations, man, it’s longer than you prep for an interview, right? It was tough. So it got kind of real. But one of the questions that I got asked, and I get asked this from time to time, you. They talk about me, my brand, my personality, my whatever, shtick and, “You’re going to be gone, and then what’s going to happen?”

And I told him and I tell you, and I hope I just showed you that the number of people in the Space Force and in the Department of the Air Force that care about the things I care about and are passionate about, the things I’m passionate about and are willing to do the hard work to make those things happen as me, that number after Friday will be exactly the same number as it is today, minus one. That’s pretty much still everybody. And the really cool news is that we got an anybody that we’re plussing up. That’s going to be awesome. So I would appreciate it if you all would help me give a big round of applause to the Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force number two, if he doesn’t screw up in two days, John Bentivegna. Hey, man. I’m not giving him a microphone though. I got two more days. D9, we’re so happy. We’re happy you’re here and I can’t wait. Can’t wait to see you Friday, brother. Thanks for everything. Thanks again, brother. Love you.

I promise, I’d do anything for any one of you. The other thing that gets asked a lot, “How do you want to be remembered? What are you proudest of? What’s the accomplishments?” There’s this checklist of questions you have to ask someone when they’re retiring. This is what I’d ask. If I’m to be remembered at all, I hope it’s through 1,000 different stories of 1,000 real relationships that I had with 1,000 real people, all of you and all the people that raised me and all our professional progeny for 1,000 generations. If any of us are worth remembering, we’re worth remembering in specific, real stories about how we specifically really changed each other’s lives. So thank all of you that helped change mine, and thanks for being part of my story. God bless the Air Force, God bless the Space Force. Semper Supra. I appreciate you.

Brown’s First Message to the Force as Chairman: ‘Accelerate Change’ Lives On

Brown’s First Message to the Force as Chairman: ‘Accelerate Change’ Lives On

Oct. 2, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. outlined his priorities for his term as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a memo issued Oct. 2, highlighted by a familiar call for the U.S. military to continue to adapt.

In a Message to the Joint Force issued on his first business day after taking over from Army Gen. Mark A. Milley at midnight on Oct. 1, Brown reprised his signature motto from his time as Air Force Chief of Staff: “Accelerate Change or Lose.”

“Our nation needs us ready to fight today’s battles but also to prepare for tomorrow’s wars,” Brown wrote in his first official guidance as the 21st Chairman. “We must prepare by modernizing and aggressively leading with new concepts and approaches. Know that my conviction to ‘Accelerate Change’ has not wavered.”

Beyond the broad clarion call for change, Brown outlined three top goals as he begins his four-year term as the nation’s top military officer.

  • First, troops should hone their skills right now. “Deterrence depends on being your adversary’s worst nightmare in a fight,” said Brown, who wrapped up three years as the Air Force’s top officer upon becoming Chairman.
  • Second, the U.S. must continue emphasizing working together across the military and breaking down parochial service barriers. Troops should “focus on what is essential in Jointness—working seamlessly across domains,” Brown wrote.
  • Finally, the U.S. military should focus on partnering with other countries as it looks to meet the challenge posed by China while still dealing with a belligerent Russia waging war in Ukraine, as well as a myriad of other threats from North Korea, Iran, and militant groups such as ISIS.

“There is almost no challenge we will confront alone,” Brown wrote. “We must integrate our military power to deter and if called upon, fight and decisively prevail in war.”

Brown’s message echoes many of the same themes his predecessor Milley sought to leave as his legacy, including his goal to bring together modernization efforts. One notable change from Milley’s 2019 opening Message to the Joint Force: Milley did not address Guardians, as the Space Force was not created until later that year.

“As we step out together, you should know my broad expectation—that honing our warfighting skill has primacy in all we do,” Brown wrote.

Brown closed his message by highlighting the importance of service members, civilians, and their families who volunteer to serve their country.

“Through all, trust is the foundation of our profession,” Brown wrote. “Trust across the force, that we will do right by each other. The trust of our families, that we will care for them through trial and triumph. The trust of our nation and elected leaders, in our commitment to our oath and profession. As Chairman, I will strive every day to strengthen these bonds.”

New Details of Secret LRSO Missile: Nine Successful Flight Tests in 2022

New Details of Secret LRSO Missile: Nine Successful Flight Tests in 2022

Oct. 2, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force’s classified Long-Range Standoff (LRSO) missile has completed at least nine successful test flights, culminating in a major power-on, free-flight test of all major systems elements in October 2022, according to a recently released Pentagon report.

The program appears to be on track, though the Air Force is withholding the system’s planned Initial Operational Capability date.

According to the Pentagon’s Selected Acquisition Reports for 2022, released late last month, the Raytheon-built LRSO completed “the first full-system integrated test demonstrating design, manufacturing, and navigation maturing” in October 2022. Of the eight other tests conducted since February 2022, four powered up the missile’s engine, the Air Force said. All tests were conducted off two B-52s earmarked for LRSO testing.

The Air Force announced in March 2023 that LRSO passed its Critical Design Review, but the service has not discussed the progress of testing the missile until now. The data in the acquisition report reflects information as of December 2022, so it is likely more LRSO tests have taken place.

The LRSO will replace the AGM-86B Air-Launched Cruise Missile as part of the airborne leg of the U.S.’s nuclear triad. It will first equip the B-52 but will also later arm the new B-21 Raider stealth bomber. The program’s original plan was to build 1,020 missiles, plus 67 for testing, but current planned production figures were withheld. Service leaders have said in the last few years that a conventional variant is not planned, but they have not ruled out such a version for the future.

According to the Pentagon report, the nine successful flight tests in 2022 demonstrated:

  • LRSO’s ability to safely separate from the B-52
  • Deployment of the missile’s flight surfaces, engine operations, and flight control actuations
  • Capture controlled flight after employment from the B-52

The culmination came in October, when the program “demonstrated safe missile separation from the B-52, missile flight control deployment, engine start and extended range operation, warhead-arming flight discrimination events, collection of flight environment, and firedown sequence data for the warhead, and advanced navigation along a mission planned route using an operationally relevant Mission Data File,” the Air Force said. All test objectives were met.

The missile is meeting or exceeding all six of its key performance parameters and attributes, the Air Force said.

Early on in the program, the target date for Initial Operational Capability was set as May 2030, with November 2030 being the not-later-than date. However, the Air Force declined to publish the current estimate, deeming it is “Controlled Unclassified Information.” A designation of CUI means the information is not secret, but when combined with other open information in the report, could reveal sensitive programmatic details.

The Air Force also did not disclose the cost per unit of the LRSO, but said procurement is running about 6.7 percent below the baseline estimate.

While total procurement is estimated to be at about $900 million over the baseline estimate; research, development, test, and evaluation is running about $400 million below the baseline estimate of $6.7 billion. Military construction is coming in about $6 million below the baseline estimate of $134 million.

In places where costs have gone up, the Air Force said, it has been due to inflation and “overruns in discrete labor tasks. Some tasks required more support than originally planned while others are a result of inefficiencies necessary to hold schedule.”

Where schedule has slipped, it has been driven by “non-critical path material delays of castings and structures,” the Air Force said. It has applied workarounds by substituting hardware generated during the technical maturation and risk reduction (TMRR) phase.

The Air Force said LRSO is intended to have a service life of 30 years.

A modular, open-system architecture is being applied to the LRSO, which will allow other offerors to bid on upgrades and modifications in the future, “as well as the life-cycle process such as logistical support, sustainment, and technology insertion.”

Also in calendar 2022, LRSO “successfully completed nine of 10 subsystem Critical Design Reviews (sCDRs) demonstrating design maturity of the LRSO cruise missile subsystems. Additionally, the program completed 10 of 13 sCDRs demonstrating design maturity of associated LRSO Peculiar Support Equipment (PSE),” the Air Force said.

The LRSO program is funded across the future years defense program in accordance with independent cost estimates from the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation, the Air Force said.

“There are no significant software-related issues with this program at this time,” the service reported. Elsewhere in the report, the service added that “there are no known risks with this program at this time.”

A single problem mentioned in the SAR—which the Air Force said would be resolved by May 2023—involved a fit problem in the B-52’s weapons bay.

“Current calculations indicate that when four or more stores are loaded on the rotary launcher, the stores clash with the fuel tank,” the Air Force said. “Risk is fully mitigated and closure is pending receipt of final documentation.”

The Milestone C decision—approving LRSO for full-rate production—is set to come in late 2027.

How Pilot Training at Vance Got Back On Track After a Storm Battered Its T-6 Fleet

How Pilot Training at Vance Got Back On Track After a Storm Battered Its T-6 Fleet

Oct. 2, 2023 | By David Roza

Two months after a surprise thunderstorm grounded nearly all of its T-6 Texan II training aircraft, Vance Air Force Base, Okla., is ahead of schedule training undergraduate pilots, an achievement that required aircraft maintainers to work around the clock and instructor pilots (IPs) to come in on weekends.

“We thought it was going to take three months to recover, to get to where we were prior to the weather event,” Lt. Col. Michael Kissinger, commander of the 33rd Flying Training Squadron, told Air & Space Forces Magazine. 

“In reality, everyone came together, our maintainers and our IPs, and we got back to on-timeline within one month of the event,” he added. “We are presently about two to three days ahead of timeline two months removed from the event.”

The 33rd is one of two student pilot training squadrons at Vance that together operate 99 T-6s, the turboprop aircraft which Air Force student pilots learn to fly before moving on to specialized training for fighter/bomber, cargo/tanker, heavy propeller, or rotary wing aircraft.

A major thunderstorm was not forecasted over Vance for the night of July 21, but the base wound up being the spot where the storm cell collapsed, Kissinger said. 

t-6 texan ii
An L3 Communications crew chief leads a T-6 Texan II crew to a full stop at Vance Air Force Base, Oklahoma, Oct. 19, 2017. U.S. Air Force photo by David Poe

When not in use, T-6s are usually parked outside and tied down. During the storm, they were subjected to 90 mph winds, which blew protective straps off propellers and sent them spinning. That can be hazardous to the aircraft, because without oil pumping through the turned-off engines, the propellers can grind chips off components and send them into the rest of the system.

The wind can also damage control surfaces like ailerons and elevators. In some cases, aircraft collided with each other or with structures after the wind tore off their straps.

All those risks meant even the visibly undamaged planes had to be grounded for inspections. In all, 78 of the 99 T-6s were grounded, leaving the 71st Flying Training Wing with just 21 percent of its usual T-6 fleet and no let-up in pilot training requirements. The two T-6 squadrons usually have a combined 150 students in the flight stage of their training, broken down into smaller classes staggered at different stages of the process. The syllabus calls for each student to fly about 100 hours.

“No one immediately said ‘Oh, we’re not going to graduate anyone on time,’” Kissinger said. “The general feeling was ‘well, this is a problem, and we’re going to work through it.’”

The stakes were especially high because a slowdown in undergraduate pilot training has ripple effects in specialized pilot training and operational units.

“Any time we don’t graduate on time, the Air Force feels those effects,” Kissinger explained.

The contract maintenance teams worked “24/7 in the literal sense of that term” to inspect aircraft and return them to flight as soon as possible, Kissinger said. On the flying side, planners dropped all sorties that were not essential to student production, such as airshows and upgrade training for IPs. Since not as many IPs were flying sorties due to the reduced number of aircraft, they helped run extra simulator sessions alongside the civilian instructors who usually lead the simulators. The goal was to maximize student sorties on the few available aircraft while still giving students the training they needed to graduate.

“We were trying to schedule around 130, 140 sorties a day,” before the storm, Kissinger said. “If you lose a single day, it might take several weekends to make up for it.”

Indeed, the squadron had gone from two days ahead of schedule to four days behind the timeline, a rare event at Vance. But the team rose to the challenge, with IPs working weekends in addition to their 10- to 12-hour workdays. 

“You always expect military people to do their duty, but at the same time when you see people just knock it out of the park and do so while maintaining a healthy morale in the squadron, I absolutely couldn’t be prouder of the 33rd, or really team Vance at large,” Kissinger said.

While the IPs worked weekends, they also needed some luck—there was no margin left for a run of poor weather or another storm.

“We needed everyone to be 100 percent efficient with the sorties and time that we had,” he said. “But there’s no buffer, and I think that’s the stress that gets put on the force, because they’re working hard and there are some things outside their control.”

t-6 texan ii
Instructor Pilots from the 71st Flying Training Wing conduct formation flying training in the U.S. Air Force T-6 Texan II aircraft over Enid, Oklahoma, June 9, 2023. U.S. Air Force photos by Staff Sgt. Taylor Crul

Meanwhile, the maintainers brought back all but nine of the 78 aircraft damaged from the storm, with the final nine awaiting replacement parts, said Sherry Teague, the director of maintenance quality assurance at Vance.

“Our contract partners and support personnel put in the hours to get our damaged aircraft back to a safe flying condition,” she said. “They gathered a lot of the data that the engineers used to decide how to get our fleet back up and running as quickly as possible and keep our pilots safe.”

As more aircraft returned to flight, the fleet could sustain about 150 sorties a day, allowing for IP upgrades and airshows again.

The comeback is a bright spot in the wider Air Force pilot training enterprise, which in August had a 900-pilot backlog due in part to aging aircraft like the T-38 Talon, used to train future fighter and bomber pilots.

In fiscal 2022, the Air Force produced 1,276 pilots. In 2023, that number rose to around 1,350, still short of the goal of 1,470. Facing strong demand, the branch is aiming for 1,500 new pilots in fiscal 2024—and the thunderstorm at Vance seemingly won’t interfere with that goal after all.

“That collaboration: everyone having that shared vision of what it takes to get across the line, and then executing, that’s really the big takeaway,” Kissinger said.

JSTARS Flies Its Last Operational Mission Ahead of November Retirement

JSTARS Flies Its Last Operational Mission Ahead of November Retirement

Oct. 2, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

A crew of Airmen at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, flew the final operational sortie of the E-8C JSTARS aircraft on Sept. 21, paving the way for the last of the fleet to be retired early next month. 

Members of the Georgia Air National Guard’s 116th Air Control Wing flew the very last of more than 14,000 sorties for the JSTARS, which is used for targeting, battle management, and command and control. 

“It’s bittersweet,” Col. Christopher Dunlap, commander of the 116th Air Control Wing, said in a release. “I’ve been flying this mission on this aircraft since the spring of 2003. There’s been a lot of changes over the years.” 

A spokesman for the 116th ACW told Air & Space Forces Magazine that two JSTARS aircraft now remain at Robins Air Force Base, Ga. The tentative plan is to send the last one to the “Boneyard” at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., in the first week of November. 

Until then, “the aircraft may be used locally for aircrew proficiency training as needed,” the spokesman added. 

Still, the final operational sorties mark one of the final milestones for the E-8. Primarily used for ground moving target indication, JSTARS also served as a battle management platform. Its most distinctive feature is the 27-foot long, canoe-shaped radome under the forward fuselage that houses a 24-foot long, side-looking phased array antenna. 

The aircraft first supported combat operations during Desert Storm and played a key role in the Air Force’s contributions during the Global War on Terror. More recently, the E-8 flew missions over Eastern Europe in the run-up and immediate aftermath of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. 

The Air Force has been planning to move on from JSTARS for a while. In June 2021, service leaders announced their intent to cut the aircraft from Robins, which has hosted them since 1996.  

In its place, Robins is getting a Battle Management Control squadron, an E-11A Battlefield Airborne Communication Node (BACN) squadron, a Spectrum Warfare group, and support units focused on the service’s Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS).  

The first E-8 departed Robins in February 2022. A month later, the service announced its intent to divest 12 of 16 aircraft in fiscal 2023 and 2024, and Congress expedited the move by repealing a previous law requiring the Air Force to maintain at least six E-8s.  

This past March, the Air Force budget request revealed a plan to accelerate the divestment plan, with the entire fleet retiring by the end of fiscal 2024, which started Oct. 1. 

Service leaders have said the Air Force needs to retire JSTARS because it would not survive in a future fight with an advanced adversary like China. Instead, they want to invest in various information and targeting technologies, including space-based platforms.

Over the last several months, Robins has wound down JSTARS operations, deactivating squadrons and conducting final flights. In June, the Active-Duty 461st Air Control Wing completed its last operational mission at Ramstein. 

The 116th ACW spokesman said before the final aircraft is officially retired, there will be “a private farewell celebration for alumni of the JSTARS program.” 

Watch, Read: CMSAF Bass on ‘Airmen of the Future’

Watch, Read: CMSAF Bass on ‘Airmen of the Future’

Oct. 2, 2023

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass highlighted personal success stories of Airmen and warned about the dangers of information warfare during her keynote address at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Sept. 13, 2023. Watch the video or read the transcript below.

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass

I see you jumping. What’s going on AFA? That sounded a little weak for about 16,000 people. What’s going on AFA? Look at this room. Look at this room. Look at the stand room only. By the way, there are some seats up here. If you want to sit next to General Brown, y’all come right up here. No, I’m serious. There’s some folks over here.

Hey, look at this room. OK, good. Y’all come on over here. Y’all can sit right there, but if Mr. Secretary comes up, you’re going to have to get on up. OK? Oh, there he goes. There he goes. No, no, no, but the secretary wants to sit by you too. Some of y’all can come on over here. Look at this room, look at the folks to your left and to your right. The people in this room, your brothers and your sisters, you are the future. Y’all give yourselves a hand clap. Every single one of you belong in this room from our Vietnam veterans to our ROTC and Civil Air Patrol cadets, from our most junior Airmen to our most senior leaders this is a powerful room. I could not be more excited to be here, to join in this AFA experience and be honored to share the stage with the speakers that you have heard over the last few days and the panelists.

I couldn’t be more excited to be here with the Secretary of the Air Force, General Saltzman, my wingman and battle buddy Toby. Toby has made a huge incredible impact on our Airmen and Guardians. Toby, you’ve done that in your over 30-year career, by the way, most of which you were United States Airmen, you were the right leader at the right time to stand up our Space Force and I could go on and on, but I’m going to share the really juicy stories later. To General Brown, my boss. In unprecedented times, I could not think of a better person to lead our force, to serve our Airmen and their families than you. You have been a steady hand in an environment full of turbulence, our Air Force and our nation owe you and Ms. Sharene a debt of gratitude as we wait for your confirmation to be our next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

To AFA, you represent a legacy of valor through education, advocacy and support to our Airmen and our Guardians. Thank you for making this week possible. To our industry partners, to our community, and our civic leaders. We can’t thank you enough for taking time out of your day to be here with us. We can not be the force that we need without you. It will take a whole of nation approach and your work, your dedication and mostly your love for our Airmen and for our families is needed now more than ever before.

Y’all give them a hand clap to the real MVPs here, our Airmen, our Guardians, our family members, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to be here at one of the largest professional development venues in our air force. To the folks who make it happen in our Air Force every single day behind the scenes. Many of the folks who are actually sitting in the front rows, these are the folks who don’t often get the credit yet they take all the heat and they weed through the layers of bureaucracy. We see you and we know what you do for our Airmen. Those are the folks from our A1 all the way to our SG. We know what you do. One quick shoutout since I’m talking about our two letters in the front row, I’ve got to highlight a man who has served for many, many years.

In fact, he enlisted in the Air Force at the age of 17. He served 22 years as a defender. He retired as a chief master sergeant and then he served another 20 years as a department of the Air Force civilian with 10 of those years as an SES. That is 42 years total folks. He has literally touched the lives of every single Airman in our Air Force and so y’all put your hands together for Mr. John Fedrigo, if you can stand up. We won’t let Chiefs cry, but John, we wish you and Gina all the very best, especially as you embark on your next best chapter in life.

All right. OK. Why are we here? Why are we here? You heard from the secretary on Monday that we are here because we are the only thing standing between China and the realization of their 100-year goal. We are here because we are the only thing standing between freedom and tyranny. We are here because we are the only thing standing between a world we want to leave our children and a world we want to shield them from. We are here because for the past 75 years, our air dominance has remained uncontested. However, like one of my favorite books, what got us here will not get us there. In today’s environment, we are not short of challenges. You’ve heard about them all week, especially in our war fighting domains. Air, land, sea, space, cyber, and information which all vitally contribute to the sum total of our spectrum of superiority. We are also not short of adversaries who want to upend the rules-based international order.

Yet despite these challenges, it’s Airmen like Senior Airman Ariel Sanchez who I had the privilege to meet at Pittsburgh Air Reserve Station. It’s those folks, Airmen like him that will meet our adversaries head on, especially in the information domain. What impressed me most about Airman Sanchez is the talent that he brings with them to our force. In fact, the talent that all of our reservists bring with them to the force. Not only is Airman Sanchez a client systems technician for our Air Force, but he works in cyber as a civilian. He also comes to us with a bachelor’s degree from George Mason and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in IT from Virginia Tech. During his post-college job searches, he recognized a need for something different, something bigger, so he joined our Air Force Reserve. Airman Sanchez found a place where he belongs and our Air Force is better for it.

In today’s operating environment, there is a huge insatiable appetite for air power, more than ever before. Our Airmen continue to deliver. You continue to deliver. You continue to be the most competitive advantage and have been nothing less than extraordinary as you accelerate change and adapt to a world that we are in, not to a world that we wish we were in. The question becomes how do we remain full throttle while shifting into higher gears and still take care of our people?

It’s not lost on me that while we sit in this air-conditioned room, there is a maintainer on a flight line in 100-degree weather turning wrenches to maintain our projection of air power. There’s an 18-year-old defender guarding our missile fields, securing the most responsive leg of our nuclear triad. Right now as we sit in this room, there are more than 16,000 of our Airmen, your fellow Wingmen, our brothers and sisters that are currently deployed across the globe getting after our nation’s business.

Let me just share a little bit about what I’ve witnessed this past year. You’ve flown nearly 800,000 sorties, totaling 2 million hours. That’s more than 5,000 hours per day. You’ve transported more than 700,000 passengers, 300 tons of cargo and passed almost 500 million pounds of fuel. OK, AMC. You’ve had a hand in eight major humanitarian efforts, floods in Pakistan, earthquakes in Turkey, typhoons in the Pacific, as well as tornadoes, wildfires, and hurricanes here at home. That’s more than 20 named operations, 100 major exercises, ongoing humanitarian relief and supporting partners and allies throughout the world and you continue to deliver air power anytime, anywhere. That’s you. That’s why you belong.

Although we have done a lot and we will continue to do all of these great things, the battle lines have been clearly drawn across all domains, so check this out, pay attention. Especially as it relates to this information environment that we are in. In an era marked by rapid technological advancement. Information has become the lifeblood of our society. It fuels are economies, shapes our perceptions and influences our decisions. It is in this very domain that warfare has taken on a new dimension. One that operates not only on land in the air or at sea, but also within the digital realms that connect our world and demand our unwavering attention and vigilance. Our adversaries understand the power of information and they seek to exploit it, weaponize it, and use it against us. They aim to sow discord, erode trust, and destabilize nations through the spread of disinformation and propaganda through emerging technology. That sounds pretty good, right? Thanks ChatGPT. No, I’m serious.

All right. For those who might be a little alarmed that I used ChatGPT, I only did it in those last three paragraphs really as an illustration of how fast our digital domain is changing. The fact is Airmen use AI right now. Your children use AI right now. Our adversaries are using AI right now. Our role is in the ethical and responsible development of AI. It cannot be understated. Instead of avoiding it, we probably better figure out how to educate our force about the difference between using these platforms and being used by them. We better figure out how to do this fast because our adversaries are already there. Right now, there are armies of bots, swarms of trolls, legions of sock puppets strategically manipulating the information that we see to achieve their own objectives. This is unrestricted warfare and it comes with minimal to no physical force.

Information warfare is a concept that has been used for thousands of years but has evolved rapidly in recent years. To get us to the next 75 years, we are going to have to focus beyond the physical domains of air, land, and sea. To get us to the next 75 years, we cannot underestimate the cyber and the information domains and to get us to the next 75 years, we are going to need six generation Airmen who think critically, challenge the status quo, and adapt and evolve to stay ahead.

Airmen like Tech. Sergeant Christopher Leung who I had the opportunity to meet when I was at Nellis. Sergeant Leung came into our Air force like many Airmen with a bachelor’s degree and he is now pursuing his master’s degree while also going to the NCO Academy. Mr. Secretary, boss, he is already thinking critically, he’s challenging the status quo and he is ready to move the ball forward. Oh yeah, one more thing about Sergeant Leung. He was actually just going to serve four quick years, get his GI bill, and pay off his Honda Civic. Actually, that last part was me. He did just sign up to do four quick years, get his GI Bill. I added that last part, but I’m so glad that he decided to reenlist because it’s Airman like Tech Sergeant Leung who absolutely long in our Air Force.

We share similar stories, we share similar challenges, and every single one of us passed through the same gateway together and raised our right hands to support and defend this nation. The most important thing America’s moms and dads do is hand us their son or their daughter and send them to a place that they’ve never been to do things that they have never imagined. That is how we recruit, how we train, how we retain the talent we need absolutely matters. How we do that will take all of us, every single one of us in this room.

We must all focus on accelerating change and modernizing a force in a world that is rapidly changing. We must all explore new ideas and embrace innovation and we must all move forward together because what will get us there is a strong and empowered force and speaking about a strong and empowered force. The Secretary briefly mentioned when he spoke on Monday that he spoke at the Air Force Sergeant’s Association conference a few weeks ago where our Airmen focused specifically on competition and how they can be part of the solution to the challenges we have. In fact, I want to give a big thank you to General Cotton, General Minahan, General Lyfe, and all of the speakers who came out to pour into the over 3,000 Airmen and Guardians who will be the ones who will get us there. What will also get us there is working with our allies and our partners.

In fact, last week I was with 29 partner Nations to include the chief master sergeant of the Ukrainian Air Force. At the European Senior Enlisted Leader Summit, we were reaffirming our commitment to be stronger together to bolster our collaboration and to better integrate by design. One of the ways that we are getting after that is through initiatives like the state partnership program that, oh, by the way, has marked its 30th anniversary this year. If you are Air National Guard in this room, can you raise your hand? Thank you. Y’all give them a big hand clap.

In fact, last week while I was spending time with my partner nations, I called each of you the secret sauce. In fact, I couldn’t be more inspired by all of our total force Airmen, our reservists and our guardsmen. All of you are our secret sauce. And speaking of total force, let me tell you about Tech. Sergeant Kaleolani Souza, a member of the Hawaii Air National Guard. I met Sergeant Souza in my home of record in Hawaii back last November and what was pretty cool when I was talking to her was I learned that not only does she serve as a defender in the guard, but she’s also an EMT and a paramedic in her civilian capacity. Not only that, she shared with me that three of her other sisters are also members of the Hawaii Air National Guard. A big thank you, a big Mahalo to her dad for trusting the Air Force with four of his daughters.

Y’all have heard me say it before, the Air Force is family business, folks. These Airmen among countless others represent the amazing talent that belong in our air force. As Airmen, we can never forget, our nation is counting on us. Service to our nation is more than just a Honda Civic. Service to our nation requires a commitment that you do not find in everyday America. This is not Google, this is not Chick-fil-A, this is not Home Depot. Not that I don’t love any of those. This is the United States Air Force and how we do anything is how we do everything. Small things matter, big things matter. Our standards matter. Like all healthy organizations, we reflect on the things that are good and we reflect on the things that we can improve. That is why I wrote the standards memo.

It is a reminder to all of us that a strong military is a disciplined and it is a uniformed military. I share with our Airmen all the time that we absolutely appreciate the talents that every single one of them brings to our force. We appreciate the uniqueness and we appreciate their individuality. However, if we are more focused on being an individual and more focused on ourselves instead of the greater good of the force, then we are probably off target. As a panelist said earlier today, air power is absolutely a team sport and we are the strongest air force in the world because we know that and because of our commitment to discipline and we can never ever allow that to erode.

The force today and the force of the future is in your hands. The future force requires Airmen at all levels to look at the air force that we have today and to ask ourselves while it is what got us here, will it be what gets us there? It requires us to cultivate the capability our adversaries covet the most. A professionalized force capable of executing the tenants of mission command. It requires Airmen who know how to build teams, operate and survive in any and all domains with our joint force allies and our coalition partners, knowing that our adversaries will not fight fair fight.

It requires Airmen who are technical experts with additional skill sets and a mindset that allows them to fight and win as agile combat teams. It requires us to look at the career fields that we have today and ask ourselves while they are what got us here, will they be what gets us there? Our nation is counting on you to be deliberate about your service and to remember that this is not just a job, this is a higher calling. Make no doubt about it. The force that we have today and the force of the future is an operational imperative, Mr. Secretary. Always remember that our strength lies in our unity, the American spirit, and the ability to grow beyond what got us here.

Again, I ask you to look around this room because the people in this room, the Airmen and the Guardians in the Air and the Space Force are who will get us there and I usually don’t get emotional, but when I think about the challenges ahead and the people who will face these challenges, it gives me pause. And just like they say in the south, I feel some kind of way. I have greatly loved four things in life. My faith, my family … I have greatly loved four things in life, my faith, my family, my country, and this Air Force.

Thank you, thank you. I told myself if I was going to cry, I was going to tell myself I was a badass. I’ve loved those four things, people. Our Air Force is in your hands. The oath that we take is selfless. This is more than just a job. This is our profession and this is our higher calling. Every one of us raised our right hands and every one of us would lay down our life for a set of beliefs that is greater than us. Every one of us honors a history that was before us, and every one of us is building a future of hope. Every single one of us in this room has an opportunity to share our stories, to reflect on why we serve and appreciate the richness of being part of this military family. You belong in this room. Every single one of you belongs in this Air Force. Thank you.