Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond delivered a keynote address on “The State of the Space Force” at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference, Sept. 20, 2022. Watch the video or read the transcript below. This transcript is made possible through the sponsorship of JobsOhio.
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Speaker 1:
General Raymond, the floor is yours.
General Raymond:
Okay, don’t start the clock yet I’m going to tell a story. And I don’t want my 40 minutes to wind down for the story, so there I was. I’m a first lieutenant at Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota and Colonel Lance Lord shows up as my wing commander. Big man, scary man. Very first day has an officer’s call and I pedaled my bike over to the club from the big block building that we used to work in. And he gives a speech about professionalism and we were in Sac and you got to be professional, your uniform has to be perfect. 35 10 was the reg that we used to follow and you got to uphold standards.
And I proceeded to pedal back to the building and no kidding, the bike rack was here and the front door was where the front of this stage was. 15 feet to go to the building. And I look off to my right and about 300 yards away in Grand Forks, North Dakota, which is not a great place to be walking outside. I see a young man with this hat off and I said, “I got my marching orders from General Lord, I can’t let this stand.” So I make an intercept and I head off to the North 40 to intercept this young airman and I said, “Young man, you forgot your cover.” And he turns around and half his head is bandaged and he said, “Sir, I just had brain surgery.” And I said, “Yes you did, let me open the door for you.” And so General Lord, thanks for all that great mentoring advice. Appreciate very much and it’s always good to see you and thanks for being here today. Always brings back great memories.
Well good morning. It is great, Absolutely great to see so many Guardians and Airmen that are here today and at this week, which is the biggest professional development event that we have. My hat’s off to AFA for yet another spectacular symposium. I greatly appreciate all you do to bring us all together each and every year. But more importantly, AA has been a loyal wing man for Airmen throughout their entire careers. For me that began 40 years ago when I was an ROTC cadet at Clemson University. Go Tigers, Harvard of the South. I’m the guy with hair.
My college roommate, Jordy are you here where are you? I don’t see him, he’s embarrassed now but he’s here somewhere. But you can see I’m wearing the Arnold Air Society braid and been supported by Air Force Association from the very early day stages of my career. I put that picture up here, one to state thanks to Air AFA, but also it’s great to see so many young ROTC cadets here, and I see many Arnold Air Society braids on your shirts. And the only thing that I would tell you is, “This could be you. If I can do it, you can do it.”
My personal wing man, is my wife Molly. That relationship started a couple years before this, but 35 years ago we got married. This is our wedding picture obviously, and not only is Molly my wing man, but she’s our family’s wing man and over the past several years she has been a dedicated wing man to the Guardians of our new space force. Molly, thank you. I also want to take a moment to recognize another couple that are very important to Molly and I, and that’s DT and Mary Thompson, DT and Mary, thank you. This incredible couple has served selflessly and we have had the privilege of serving by their side for many, many years. They are model Guardians and we couldn’t be more privileged to have them as our partners and friends. DT and Mary, thank you.
I want to begin by saying on behalf of all Guardians active duties, civilian, happy 75th birthday to the United States Air Force. Although this is the Air Force’s birthday, we are part of the Department of the Air Force and we’re all celebrating with you, either as former Airmen or as current guardian to appreciate all the great support the Air Force provides to our new nurse service each and every day. We couldn’t be prouder of our older sibling. As I said last year at AFA in Orlando with the establishment of the Space Force, we have upped our game in both domains as the Air Force can now more fully focus on the air domain and the Space Force can provide dedicated focus on a critical domain of space. And although you’re the senior citizen and we’re just about to graduate from our terrible twos, together we make an incredible team and that is dominant in both the air and space domains.
Having served 35 and a half years as an airman, and nearly three years as a guardian, it is clear that I am in terminal count or in Air force terms, short final of my career. It’s an honor to be able to give one final presentation to this great group. On 20 December, 2019 in a hangar at Andrews Air Force base, the National Defense Authorization Act was signed establishing the United States Space Force effective that evening. Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from that night. This is right after the law was signed, the announcement was made. Look at the look in General Goldfein’s eyes. It is my favorite, favorite picture, and look at Secretary Barrett like a proud leader knowing that we could do this. General Goldfein, I think you’re here. Sir, thank you very much.
That night on the airplane flying back to Peterson, we popped a cork and had a piece of cake to toast our new service. After that toast, the magnitude of the task at hand hit me pretty hard. We had to build an entire new service with largely out of existing resources without missing a beat on current day to day operations, and our national security demanded that we get it right. That demanded that we build this service independently, but to do so in a way that didn’t interrupt the great progress we’ve made in integration with the United States Air Force and our other sister services.
It’s a theme that our Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall stresses to us each and every day, “One team, one fight.” And under the AFA strong leadership and with a great, great partner in General CQ Brown, that’s exactly what we built. CQ, it’s been an absolute honor for Molly and I to serve closely with you and Shereen over the past couple years. And we’ve known each other, like we’ve said before, all the way back since Air Command and Staff College, but your leadership is making a big difference, not just for the Air Force but for the entire joint force and it’s a privilege to serve at your side.
We are extremely lucky to have Secretary Kendall as our secretary and undersecretary Jones as our undersecretary. In particular that SEC AAF’s operational imperatives have been a driving force inside the Department of the Air Force. And we have improved the quality of our analytical work and the planning that we’ve done. Sir, thank you for instilling focus and a sense of urgency to get after our pacing challenge. After decades of discussion and debate on that night on 20th December, 2019, the United States took an opportunity. An opportunity to elevate space to a level commensurate with its importance to our nation. An opportunity to enhance global security by amplifying deterrence and increasing the lethality of our joint and coalition forces, critical to integrated deterrence. An opportunity to firmly establish the United States leadership in space, and to shape the norms of behavior in the space domain. An opportunity to enhance global partnerships, uniting the world in common interest and it is great to see so many of our international partners that are here with us today. Many have whom elevated space in their countries as well.
Space is a global domain and we need global partners, we are stronger together. An opportunity to attract a new generation of civilian active duty, and total forced talent and a broader sector of Americans to serve our country, and to connect with. And develop and care for those Americans and their families using modern human capital development tools, applying more art than science. An opportunity to harness the accomplishments of industry, to create a few government commercial relationships to accelerate innovation, expand our industrial base. And to provide critical new advantages on tactically relevant timelines, I can’t overstate the criticality of industry to our success in space.
An opportunity to unite fragmented space entities across the Department of Defense in order to move quickly, make the best use of funding that we get and meet the urgency of the moment. An opportunity with our global innovative perspective, to redefine the character of warfare in our best interest and the interest of our allies and partners. Space flight has always been about opportunity for this country, we are a space faring nation. It is no different in the Department of Defense. The Space Force will ensure our freedoms and opportunities extend into space, and will show that we can meet any challenge anywhere. Seizing these opportunities was not about incremental change, it was about bold thinking, a new approach built for today and for the next 100 years, not for the past.
We faced two early challenges in my opinion. The first challenge is that we wouldn’t think bold enough, the second challenge was that when we did think bold, that bureaucracy might stifle our bold thinking. We were dead set against either of these happening and if we did this right, we wanted all the other services to be looking over our shoulder and say, “Man, I wish I had what they had.” Because we had an opportunity to start with a relatively clean sheet of paper. It hasn’t been easy, in fact its been hard. But space is hard, and that’s what Guardians do best. And I would like the opportunity to walk you through some of what we’ve accomplished, and more importantly introduce you to a few Guardians that have made this happen.
So when you started off, we started looking for the checklist, there wasn’t one. So we came up with a checklist and we said here are the six things we’re going to focus on, you can see them on the slide. We wanted to, if you’re an independent service, thought you needed to develop your own people, you had to have your own doctrine like the Air Force did back in 1947 in the Air Core Tactical School. Had to have our own budget, you had to design your force, both organizationally and force structure wise. Then you have to ready that force and then you have to present those forces to combatant commands.
So with that as our guiding principles, we set off and what I’d like to do is highlight a few of these areas and bring them to life for you. As I mentioned, we saw an opportunity to attract a broader sector of Americans to serve. Because of our small size and because we were starting from scratch, we wanted to fundamentally change our ability to develop our most important resource, our people. Again, applying a little bit more art than science. What we quickly learned was, if you had a service that had one person in it, like the Space Force did for about four months. That was really good, you could always tell that the force was really healthy, never had a DUI, it was really easy. Or a service of a million people.
You had to have the basics. You had to be able to transfer Guardians into the service. You had to be able to recruit new Guardians, you had to be able to assess them, develop them. You had to pay those Guardians, you had to educate those Guardians, you had to give Guardians an ID card, you had to have a uniform. But we also challenged our S-1 team to not just do the basics. We wanted you to think out of the box and do things differently. It was a lot to ask of them, it’s like asking an Olympic sprinter to run a marathon, it’s two different skill sets, do the job today but make a change, and they’ve done spectacular. I also want to recognize before continuing Chief Master Sergeant Toby Towberman, our Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force, who has been so instrumental in shaping and helping lead this transformation of our human capital development, along with many other things. Chief, thanks to you and Rachel for your leadership and for being on this journey with us, thank you.
So our starting point was the guardian ideal. This is our human capital plan for Guardians and their families. The big idea is to take advantage of our small size and to provide a more tailored approach at an individual level. One part of this is identifying competencies for each job down to a very detailed level. It’s no longer good enough to say, “Hey, I need a lieutenant colonel space operator, or a master sergeant space operator.” We wanted to get down to, we wanted a Lieutenant Colonel or Master Sergeant with orbital warfare skills, with these certain technical skills. For example, data management skills and we wanted to have that for every single job so we could be more purposeful in our assignment process.
Guardians can do extraordinary things and the nation will call on them and rely on them to do those extraordinary things. They require unique skills, we should manage our force to reflect that. I would like to introduce to you Air Force Colonel retired now, Mr. Jason Lim. Jason, where are you? Sir, thank you. Jason understood this and has been our principle architect for this guardian ideal and for helping us get to where we need to be, thank you very much for your leadership. The ideal also articulates our core values which are connection, character, courage and commitment. Look today, look again 100 years from now and you’ll see that we are operationalizing these values and all that we do. Let me give you one example of a way that we are living up to operationalizing the core values of connection.
Senior Master Sergeant Tony Chua, Ms. Joey Sanchez, Master Sergeant Phil Lowry, and Master Sergeant Eric Mistro, led a small group within StarCom to think through how we develop guardian identity and basic military training. Early in the planning, they understood the importance of establishing our own traditions as well as the need to emphasize connection as a core value to the space force. They developed a patching ceremony for us to use at basic training, and two days before graduation, every new guardian receives their first Space Force patch. The patch that is given is not new coming out of the package, it is one that has been worn by a current Space Force guardian on their uniform. The patch is accompanied by a handwritten note welcoming them to the Space Force. Since incorporating into basic training, we are now expanding it to all members coming into the Space Force from inner service transfers to our USAFA, ROTC and OTS graduates.
I know we have a team that helped put this together here, if you’ll please stand up and Senior Master Sergeant Chua, if you could come up to the stage with me real quick, thank you. Senior Master Sergeant Chua is MTI down at basic training, been instrumental in standing up our Space Force basic training and what I would like to do is give you my patch… that I’ve been wearing on my uniform and if you won’t mind, I’ll take yours and put it on mine.
SMSGT Chua:
I don’t mind at all, sir.
General Raymond:
Thank you very much. Appreciate Your leadership.
We also had to address recruiting. We only recruit about 500 enlisted Guardians every year and about 300 officers. Our goal was not to take the first 500, or the first 300, but the best. And we’ve done so. We’ve completely changed how we recruit with the help of the Air Force recruiting service. Centralizing selection, enhanced assessments, board selection of every guardian that comes into our service by a group of senior mass sergeants. The good news is that we have more folks knocking on our door than we can take and our talent level is soaring. We’ve developed a university partnership program with 14 different schools that are included, focusing on attracting top tier talent and research. For officer accessions, if you sign a contract with us, we’ll commit to you and we’ll pay for your education.
Our diversity rates are increasing across the board, still not reflective of the nation that we serve, but we’re trending in the right direction. Our digital fluency is rising, which is so important to fueling innovation and tackling the tough space domain big data challenges. We have incredible young talent from road scholars, cadet wing commanders, Ivy League grads, national champions. I’d like to introduce you to a young specialist that I met back in Nashville. Specialist Autumn Lovell. Autumn, please stand. Thank you. I met Autumn in Nashville and had an opportunity to swear her into the Space Force before going to basic training, she wanted to be an intel specialist.
She already had her bachelor’s degree. She’d just graduated from tech school as a distinguished graduate and in the end of the course she was top performer in the end of course Operation Lone Star exercise. Specialist Lovell, I met at Peterson a couple weeks ago and she told me her goal is to be an officer, and specifically she wants to be a CSO. Autumn, thanks for taking a chance on us and for joining the Space Force and I can’t wait 30 years from now, watching your hearing as you testify to become a CSO, you’re that talented, thank you.
We’re also looking at less traditional ways to assess talent. This summer we accepted six cyber professionals to commission directly into the Space Force from industry. We’re bringing them in anywhere from a first lieutenant to a lieutenant colonel based on the credit we’ve given them for the experience that they’ve had with the industry. Our first person, our first officer that has come in directly from industry is First Lieutenant Jessica Thompson at Direct Commission. She can’t be with us here today because she’s at OTS, and she’ll graduate and join our forces as a cyber professional inside of the United States Space Force, we’re very proud of her.
The last critical piece that we’ve used to build this service is transferring volunteers from other sister services into the Space Force. Nobody has ever done this before on the scale that we’re doing, we had thousands and thousands of volunteers and we selected 895 Sailor, Soldiers and Marines along with the Airmen that have transferred into the Space Force. All of these are volunteers, you can’t order anybody to move from one service to another. It was pretty easy for space operators to volunteer because that’s where your job was going for the intelligence professionals, acquisition professionals, engineers and cyber professionals. They could have stayed in the Air force or they could have shifted. That was a harder decision I’m sure, but probably the most difficult group of folks that had to decide were those that were coming in from other services because they were volunteering to leave a service, some that had been Colonels, or Navy Captains, or Command Sergeant Majors that have volunteered to come in.
One of the cool things that I’ve got to witness over the course of this past year are what we call transfer ceremonies. Where folks come in and we’ve done it everywhere from Thule, Greenland to an island in the Pacific, to the International Space Station. It’s a really, really powerful ceremony and I’d like you to witness that today. So I’d like to invite Specialist Caleb Jones, Sergeant Eric Runyon, Sergeant Kale Jennings, Staff Sergeant Eric Raffin and Staff Sergeant Ross McClellen to come up on the stage.
So these five soldiers have volunteered to transfer from the army to the United States Space Force and if you wouldn’t mind, if you’re able to stand and we’re going to do an oath and transfer them from one service to another service. Thank you very much. Thanks for your service and we’re very proud to have you on our team. If you’ll raise your right hand and repeat after me.
I, state your name.
Group:
I [inaudible 00:22:36].
General Raymond:
Do solemnly swear.
Group:
Do solemnly swear.
General Raymond:
That I’ll support and defend the constitution of the United States
Group:
That I will support and defend the constitution of the United States.
General Raymond:
Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Group:
Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
General Raymond:
That I bear true faith in allegiance to the same.
Group:
That I bear true faith and allegiance to the same.
General Raymond:
That I’ll obey the orders of the President of the United States.
Group:
That I’ll obey the orders of the President of the United States.
General Raymond:
And the orders of the officers appointed over me.
Group:
And the orders of the officers appointed over me.
General Raymond:
According to regulations.
Group:
According to regulations.
General Raymond:
And the uniform Code of military justice.
Group:
And uniform code of military justice.
General Raymond:
So help me God.
Group:
So help me God.
General Raymond:
Congratulations Guardians.
Speaker 5:
Thank you, sir. Thank you.
General Raymond:
Thanks for coming out today. Thank you. Proud of you. Thank you very much. Welcome to the team.
Speaker 6:
Thank you, sir.
General Raymond:
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Speaker 7:
Thank you, sir.
General Raymond:
So that’s what we’ve been doing to recruit, develop, and retain the best people, but it’s not sufficient. We must give them the capabilities designed for today’s contested domain while at the same time uniting the fragmented space entities across the department. As the missile threat continues to evolve and as our threats to our space assets continue to emerge, we must transform our space architectures to be more capable and more resilient, in line with Secretary Kendall’s first operational imperative. I’d like to spend a minute highlighting the force design work that we are doing, both organizationally and force structure wise. One of those key areas I highlighted earlier, that an independent service must do.
Organizationally we flatten the structure eliminating two layers of command and establishing mission focused deltas. Let me use missile warning as a case study. Pre Space force responsibility for ground based missile warning was part of the 21st Space Wing at Peterson. Responsibility for space based warning was responsibility for the 460th at Buckley. There are six different PEOs developing different portions of the architecture. Today we’ve united ground and space base into one missile warning delta under 106 Commander, and we’ve consolidated the PEO structure under one PEO at Space Systems Command.
In addition to this consolidation, we’ve also aligned detachments of cyber professionals from Delta six, and intelligence professionals from Delta seven with Delta four at Buckley. This alignment has enabled us to better understand key cyber training of the missile warning network and to be more threat focused, with dedicated intelligence professionals focused on this and other critical missionaries. At the headquarters level, the Department of Defense has also taken two big steps forward. First, the Joint Requirements Oversight Council, JROC, issued a memorandum delegating responsibility for joint space requirements to the Space Force. And the Secretary Defense in a memo just a few weeks ago, delegated responsibility for the force design work to the United States Space Force, as required by law.
We established an organization called the Space War Fighting Analysis Center to do this work. This organization is led by Mr. Andrew Cox, and it’s comprised of our smartest PhDs on our best and brightest operators. The work they do is directly linked to Secretary Kendall’s operational imperative number one, delivering a resilient space order of battle. However, what we learn, that space is integrated into all of Secretary Kendall’s imperatives and that the SWAFC has really served as our analytical backbone for this whole effort. They first track tackled the missile warning, missile tracking force design to deliver more effective capabilities in response to the changing missile threat, and to diversify the architecture in space in face of a growing threat to those space capabilities. This is the most consequential work the Space Force has delivered and I am extremely proud of the SWAFC team. They have brought together the entire department and have delivered a design agreed to by all of our key mission partners.
All of this work is being done digitally in a collaborative manner with industry. Rather than delivering a stack of requirements telling industry what we want them to build, we are engaging early in conversations with industry to seek their inputs on how they would tackle that challenge. Finally, as General Brown highlighted in his speech, we are also wanting to be integrated by design, and so we’re sharing our force design work with our closest allies and our partners. Once the force is designed, we must acquire the capabilities. We have a great leader in place as the first Assistant Secretary for Space Acquisition and Integration, Mr. Frank Cavalli. Frank, thanks for being our partner, and thanks for being on our team. Frank, under his leadership, the Space Acquisition community is working together to acquire the next generation of space capabilities.
Let me note that the Space Development Agency will also formally transfer into the Space Force in just a couple of weeks, but thanks to the excellent collaboration over the past year, this transfer will be seamless. And as we seek to deliver this new force design, we need industry to come along with us. We cannot continue to do business the way that we’ve done in the past. A different force design requires different cost structures, different risk calculus, and different time horizons. Industry needs to deliver at a reduced cost on shorter timelines and the government needs to redefine its mission assurance to make this happen. Under Lieutenant General Mike Guetlein’s leadership, Space Systems command has responded aggressively by engaging industry at all levels, from the smallest of smalls, to our largest primes, through innovative forms like reverse industry days that seek to leverage industry’s innovation.
Mike’s mantra of, “Exploit what we have, buy what we can and build what we must.” Is helping space systems command prioritize to get after our toughest challenges. This brings me to the last responsibility of that independent service that I’d like to highlight and expand on, and that’s readying and generating the force to present to combatant commanders. We’re leading a fundamental rethink of what readiness means to a force that is primarily employed in place rather than waiting to deploy overseas, we are addressing each aspect of readiness. Do we have the right quantity, and the right mix of people? Do we have the right systems, including ground and space, hardware and software? Do we have the right basic, advanced and continuous training requirements? This means a different way of approaching training and sustainment, as well as new ways of reporting data up to higher headquarters at the Pentagon.
We are also expanding our exercise program beyond Space Flag to increase readiness of our squadrons. This week, Guardians are participating in Black Skies, an electronic warfare exercise that trains the force in a realistic threat scenario. Black Skies is the first of a series of exercises, StarCom will develop to build the readiness of operating in this new war fighting domain. The lessons we learned from these efforts won’t just benefit the Space Force by the way. Any employed in place mission will also benefit the entire department and will give us a more holistic view of the Joint Forces’ readiness. All of this will help us effectively present integrated combat capability into space operations, intelligence and cyber all nested together, largely under the leadership of Lieutenant General Stephen Whiting, at Space Operations Command.
Let me just use two quick scenarios to bring, why all this work is important. Let’s talk about launch. The United States has been the world leader in space launch since the beginning of the space age. As we operate ranges at both Cape Canaveral Air Force Space Force Station, and Vandenberg Space Force Base, to safely conduct commercial, civil, and national security launches from both coasts. Launch is a team sport, and the Space Force, along with our industry, civil, and inter agency partners have had an incredible string of success. But the manifest is changing and is changing rapidly. As a young colonel, I served as the Operations Group Commander at Vandenberg, this was in 2005. That year the United States launched 25 rockets from Vandenberg and Cape Canaveral together. Worldwide, there were just 67 launches that occurred. This year alone at Cape Canaveral, we are on track to conduct over 60 launches, and at Vandenberg is on track to conduct 18 launches. And in the next few years projections show that those numbers will soar to approximately 300 launches a year. Just think of that, just shy of one launch per day.
On four August, 2022, just last month, the Eastern range supported both the space based infrared GEO-6 satellite mission launch in the morning. And 13 hours later, they supported SpaceX’s launch of a South Korean lunar mission. That’s two launches, 13 hours. A feat that’s not been accomplished since 1955. In addition to the two launches from Florida, there were also two more US launches that same day, A launch of commercial astronauts from Texas and an [inaudible 00:31:59] launch from New Zealand.
This incredible feat was done on the backs of our Guardians. Guardians like Major Katie Carroll from the Fifth Space Launch Squadron. Katie, please stand. Major Carroll leads an effort for hybrid commercial cloud architecture supporting the Eastern and Western range. This effort will rapidly improve the information technology tools that our Guardians will need to maintain our world leading launch capabilities, we thank you. To meet the huge launch forecast on the horizon, our launch ranges are also in the midst of a significant transformation that we call Range of the Future. Pivoting to a flat digital autonomous range that will help reduce costs and increase the throughput, and serving as the foundation of our competition with China and Russia.
The last missionary I’d like to highlight is our missile warning mission. Just like launch, the critical missile warning mission is yet another mission area that has gone through incredible growth. The Guardians who operate are space based and ground based missile warning sensors provide that unblinking eye that warns and protects our nation and our allies from attack. You all know that on eighth January, 2020, less than 20 days after the establishment of the Space Force, our Guardians at Buckley’s Space Force Base, and four deployed in CENTCOM AOR detected and warned of a missile attack on Al Asad. Their timely actions ultimately contributed to saving lives of American forces deployed in theater. That SBIRS GEO-6 satellite that I just mentioned on launch, will complete the Constellation and will soon be supporting operators like Lieutenant Ashley Galloway. Ashley, please stand. Ashley works in the 11th space Warning Squadron.
Lieutenant Galloway is part of a team at Buckley Space Force Base that detected and reported on 4,150 missile launches globally since the first of the year. Just to give you context, throughout all of 2021, the system tracked 1,168, almost a fourfold increase. This is hard round the clock work, but I know the Space Force will be ready because of efforts and people like those of Lieutenant Galloway who found innovative ways to push our systems beyond the limit. As you can see, the Space Force team has accomplished a lot in just three short years, and I’ve just highlighted a few of them, and I couldn’t be more proud of the team that made it all happen. But I’d also like to highlight two significant initiatives that we’re working on, that when delivered will have a broader transformation of the Joint Force.
First, our Human Health assessment Program. We have to change the way we prioritize holistic health of our Guardians and their families. I know you all have heard a little bit about our thoughts on a new holistic health assessment program, and we’re still working through finalizing the details. But I think there is an imperative to experiment with new and modern approaches to holistic health and fitness. We envision that this will include access to localized professional services and rethinking how we see ourselves in our fitness beyond just run time, sit-ups and pushups. We are preparing Guardians for a different future, and we need to take care of the whole guardian accordingly. Again, this isn’t easy and takes significant planning to achieve, but our Guardians and their families deserve to be taken care of the best way we know how.
And on Total Force integration, over the past two years we have been working to redefine how we integrate with the Total Force. The guard and reserve are absolutely critical to our mission success. We’ve come up with a very innovative solution to combine both active duty and reserve forces into a single component. This is going to be hard work and it’s going to take the full support of the Total Force and the Department of Defense and the executive and legislative branches. In my opinion, this construct will do for the total force what Goldwater-Nichols did for the Joint Force. It will enable portability between full-time and part-time, allowing Guardians to work for commercial industry, work at NASA, work for the Intelligence community, and then come back full-time to the Space Force. It’ll enable us to attract and retain a higher level of talent and to continue to increase our diversity.
I don’t underestimate how much work this is going to entail. Our team of active duty and reserve professionals worked for almost two years on this proposal and we know Congress needs some time to work through all the details too, but we can’t shy away from what’s hard because hard is what the Space Force does and this will be a game changer. The United States is a space faring nation, and we will only be more so in the decades ahead. Today as a space faring nation, we depend on space to fuel our American way of life and our American way of war. We are also living in the most complex strategic time and at least three generations, a hinge of history and space is at the center of this moment, the work of Guardians will shape the future. Eventually I predict, even more than airplanes and submarines have in the past maybe. Our primary purpose is to deter great power war, we must do that by showing that we could win one.
In peace time we must be visibly present in orbit showing that the rules based order that we have upheld since World War II, applies everywhere, including space. As a new service, Guardians must serve in both protector and pathfinder roles. As protectors, Guardians safeguard America and our allies from above. As Pathfinders, Guardians will have roles that follow in the legacy of our greatest technological achievements, and the work of Guardians will signal our goals and expand our future opportunities. The United States Space Force has just begun and it has a great history ahead. We will draw new generations of Americans from all backgrounds and all walks of life into service to the nation.
We will always be above ensuring the security of the United States and our allies. And to the Guardians that are here today. You have a lot to do. Push the frontier, bring your ideas and your excellence and live up to your values. The country needs you and there is much ahead. And I couldn’t be more excited for the future of the Space Force. I congratulate General Chance Saltzman on his nomination and if confirmed, I know he will lead this great group of Guardians to even greater heights in the future.
Finally, one last thing as I get off the stage. How many people have been at events and have heard and now it’s time to play the Interim Space Force song? Well, we’re going to take interim out of that sentence and today we’re going to unveil for the first time ever our new Space Force song. To me, it captures the mission of the Space Force, it’s easily singable, even by people that cannot sing and trust me, you won’t hear me sing. It blends in well with the other service songs in the service medley, and it tells our story. I couldn’t be more proud of how this song came out and I’m really excited to share it with you today, please roll the tape.
First of all, we wanted a song that spoke to our Guardians, that brought to life our motto, “Sempra Super, Always Above.” And I got a text from a gentleman named Jamie Teachenor. Jamie was a Nashville singer songwriter who decided he wanted to give back to his country and joined the Air Force and joined the Air Force Band in Colorado Springs. And he supported us when we were Air Force Space command, and he wrote this song.
Jamie Teachenor:
I put together things from reading white papers and speaking with General Raymond and Chief Towberman. And so it was quite a long work in progress for a while because I wanted to make sure that everything that was in this song would adequately represent all the capabilities that our Space Force is involved with, and make sure I didn’t mess up on the mission or the vision of what the Space Force does.
General Raymond:
When that song came in, it also needed to be arranged. It needed to have the big musical score like all the other service songs have. And so we reached out to composers that they had worked with and there was a gentleman named Sean Nelson who is a member of the Coast Guard Band up in Connecticut and he worked just a masterful arrangement to this song and then it all comes together into something that I hope my Guardians around the world would be proud of.
Sean Nelson:
I went for it and I did what I thought was going to be the most exciting sounds, and it seemed to have worked.
General Raymond:
When I heard that, it was the glue that brought all the three pieces, words, music, and arrangement together. And I thought, “we’ve got something that we can be proud of.”
Speaker 12:
Please stand for the Space Force song.
General Raymond:
Jamie, thank you very much.
Jamie Teachenor:
Welcome.
General Raymond:
Thank you for bringing that to life for us. Well done, thank you. Thank you. Y’all have been really busy. Thanks. Thank you very much. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks so much. Thanks. Thanks for all the hard work. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thanks. Thanks. Good to see you. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you very much, Sean, thanks. Its an incredible song, we’re proud of it. Thanks for that. Thanks for [inaudible 00:42:18]. All right. Please.
I think you just leave off that way.
Jamie Teachenor:
[inaudible 00:42:18].
General Raymond:
I’ll meet you right outdoors.
Jamie Teachenor:
Thank you.
General Raymond:
Thank you.
Gerald Murray:
General Raymond. Sir, on behalf of AFA, I present you the 75th Anniversary Coin. Sir, yesterday the secretary noted that from this time forward, you’ll always be noted as the Founding Father of the United States Space Force. And sir, we are proud absolutely to have you, and be able to support you in every endeavor that we can. Thank you.
General Raymond:
Thank you very much.
Gerald Murray:
Yes, sir.
General Raymond:
Thank y’all.
Gerald Murray:
Thank you.
