CHARLESTON AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. –
Helen Keller once said that "the world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes of each honest worker." Recently I was honored to preside over a retirement ceremony for one of the finest senior master sergeants I have ever worked with. During his speech, Senior Master Sgt. Zack Edison of the 437th Maintenance Squadron mentioned that one day he was complaining about having to do another person's job and a chief overheard him in the hallway and came to see him later. "Sergeant Edison," the chief said, "do you still get a paycheck?" "Yes, chief," replied Sergeant Edison. "Then just work," said the chief.
Sergeant Edison mentioned that those words stuck with him and he thought they were important enough to mention at his retirement speech. Nobody joined the Air Force just to get money for college, or to see the world ... those might be benefits to the reasons we joined, but I would argue that we all joined the Air Force because we had a calling of some sort to do something and be involved in something bigger than ourselves. Nobody joined to be a hero, but working together to keep our country free ... that makes every member of the Armed Services heroes. When we joined, we didn't care really what our job was, we just wanted to help make a difference -- don't you think we should occasionally sit back and think about why we're here?
As I type this I also realize that we ask a lot of our folks. Just when you think you will be off at 4 p.m., you find out that you have to stay four hours overtime and that night out with your spouse gets cancelled at the last minute. Or you get called on a last minute temporary duty and that camping trip with your kids got postponed again. I know we didn't join the Air Force for work to get in the way of our personal lives and trust me, I know these things get to people ... it gets to me, but we must remember that people are depending on us doing our job. Service before self isn't just an Air Force core value for our military member; all military family members live with that core value as well.
Often times our first response is to say "it's not my job ... the (pick a squadron of your choice) should be doing that." Maybe the job isn't something we normally do, but if it is something we can do to keep the mission moving, then we should, as I like to call it, "suck it up and elevate." Meaning, do the job and elevate it to your supervision to see if we can fix the process in the future. Usually it's just easier to sit back and complain about how you're not going to do somebody else's job than it is to go out and get the job done in the first place. In my line of work, my folks often depend on other people to do things so they can continue with their job. This may mean pulling a panel off the airplane so we can fix the delamination on the panel, towing the jet into a hangar so we can work on it, or writing a job up correctly and with as much information as possible so we can troubleshoot it properly.
In my squadron we talk a lot about "helping ourselves." I'll use my Fuel Cell troops as an example. In order for the fuel troops to do their job, the jet has to be defueled and towed to the fuel cell hangar. Historically, the aircraft maintenance squadron has done this and it gets done but this can take up to eight hours depending on manning and what the flying schedule is like. During this time, fuel cell is waiting for the aircraft and getting upset at the amount of time it's taking for the other squadron to get them the jet. To help solve this problem, we've trained our fuel cell folks to defuel and be part of the tow team. This training helps the other squadron, sure, but it really helps us get our job done more efficiently. I am so proud of my squadron and the initiatives they've taken to help make the mission happen - but there are thousands of initiatives out there ... imagine what we could accomplish.
The bottom line is that we all need to push ourselves to make sure we are doing everything in our power to make the mission happen. That may mean pulling a panel for someone else, helping that new Airman fill out their first travel voucher so that Airman can get a paycheck, filling out profile paperwork in enough detail so supervision can understand, or taking the extra time to tell command post that you had a problem with an airplane so they can ensure you get to a run spot on the flightline. We are all critical to making the mission happen. As deployments become more frequent and the work just keeps coming, we need to remember we joined to be part of something bigger than ourselves, so let's stop thinking about just ourselves and start thinking about how we can work together to keep the mission moving.