Joel and Christy

In the military, we don’t often get to hear from our leaders but today was one of those days.  For the first time since I initially put this uniform on 10 years ago, I sat and listened to the Air Force Chief of Staff speak.  General Norton Schwartz came by yesterday and addressed his troops.  We are at a joint, NATO base with multiple nations and service branches represented.  We don’t have large theater or auditorium to fit everyone in and the biggest room they could find was the passenger terminal at the airport so that’s where we went.  Also, of all the folks here, he only wanted to address the Airmen.  When you cut out all the non-Americans and then cut the Army, Navy, and Marines…wow.  I guess there aren’t as many of us here as I thought.  We all fit in the room and awaited his arrival. 

He showed up, took the microphone, and began his commander’s call.  He spoke of unity and teamwork.  He addressed the fiscal constraints of present times and how it would affect us today and in the future.  He talked about force shaping, and his vision for an operational force working with tighter purse strings.  It was interesting, which is saying a lot since he spoke at 4:30pm and I had been up since 2am and I STILL stayed awake. 

After he was done, he began taking questions from the audience.  Folks asked questions about the future of joint bases, the drone program, cuts in educational funding, and a revamping of the deployment process.  It was great to hear from a guy who has the president’s ear.  Here we were asking questions to the same guy Obama asks about Air Force issues and goals.  It was a cool day.