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  • Airmen step forward when needs arise

    One of the more unpleasant tasks I have had to carry out over these last four and half years has been to inform someone while we’re deployed that they aren’t going to go home when they thought they were. We’re all well aware that this happens fairly frequently and has a ripple effect with the

  • Train Airmen to fill shoes of past leaders

    For most people in Air Force Special Operations Command when they hear the words, “fight and win,” they think of going to war in Iraq or Afghanistan. I must admit I thought the same thing at first. After, I thought about it for a couple of days and it was like the old cliché of a light going on. For

  • RED HORSE looks back on ORI experience

    Sometimes you just never see the train wreck coming. The 823d RED HORSE Squadron was subjected to an Air Combat Command Operational Readiness Inspection August 2005, and we thought we were ready. In fact, we thought we were going to send the Inspector General back to Langley Air Force Base with

  • ‘0-0-1-3’ works – I’m alive to prove it

    I arrived home Saturday with a few thousand dollars worth of damage to the front end of my dream truck. I could have been the young man from Pensacola whose Ford Explorer is scrap metal and wondering how to pay for a life flight helicopter ride … if he ever makes it out of a critical care bed in the

  • Climate assessment drives change

    During the recent installation climate assessment, we asked 16th Special Operations Wing personnel to comment on how well we’re taking care of our wingmen and our families. Focus areas included morale, job environment, recognition, leadership and peer relationships. We also asked for comments on

  • Measure of leader is result of mentoring

    How do you prepare your subordinates to be the next generation of leaders? You’ll have great success if you promote and prepare your troops for professional military education, coupled with mentoring and training them and providing them the lessons learned from your experiences. One of the first

  • We can’t afford to lose ‘bubble’

    I’m an American. As such, I have a predisposition to want to win. Whether I’m playing pick-up basketball at the health and wellness center, dodge ball against a fellow unit, poker with my brothers, videogames with my children or just watching my favorite NFL team on Sunday, I love to win. Not so