Building culture to sustain resilient Airmen

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Amanda Dick
  • Air Force Public Affairs Agency
WASHINGTON (AFNS) --  Resilience: Merriam-Webster defines it as "an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change."

Resiliency is a word used a lot throughout the Air Force, but not many take to heart; many see it, specifically Comprehensive Airmen Fitness, as just a program, but it's so much more.

"It's not a program," said Lt. Col. Gregory Laffitte, the Headquarters Air Force Comprehensive Airman Fitness Branch Chief. "We're creating a culture. We want to foster this Air Force community that's thriving."

The concept of resilience has been around long before the Air Force. Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers were all resilient members of society who paved the way for many of today's luxuries, despite obstacles they faced and negative comments.

"There were two brothers -- this was years ago -- these two guys, they grew up together in the same household with the same mom and dad," Laffitte said. "Their lives were challenged with the economy, the Great Depression, the down turn of how things can be. Historically, they struggled. As they got older, they had a hard time keeping jobs, becoming established and being successful. They had failed business ventures and enterprises.

One of them was out playing hockey and got hit in the mouth -- knocked his teeth out. The other one elected to stay home to take care of family. As they faced these challenges, they didn't get to go on and do what they wanted to do or maybe had some failings along the way. One day, they opened up a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio. Guess who these guys ended up being? Orville and Wilbur Wright."

Comprehensive Airmen Fitness aims to create a culture where Airmen have the skills they need to overcome adverse or traumatic events in their lives. CAF consists of four main pillars: mental, physical, social and spiritual fitness.

"(CAF) translates into readiness," Laffitte said. "The data out there demonstrates, with a lot of validity, that if (the pillars) are in balance, a person is happier -- they thrive. When Airmen receive training to gain skills to be more resilient, they do even better."

No one knows this better than Chief Master Sgt. Richard Simonsen, the Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling senior enlisted leader, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and minor traumatic brain injury due to several attacks from a prior deployment.

Simonsen runs on the treadmill several times a week, shutting out the world with headphones and running with his eyes closed. When asked why, his answer was simple.

"It's 30 minutes I can spend with God," Simonsen said. "I use it to enhance myself spiritually. I like to listen to Christian music; there's podcasts of Christian messages. I like to take care of the spiritual side of Rich Simonsen while I'm taking care of the physical side."

While Christian faith is Simonsen's spiritual pillar, it's not the end-all-be-all for every Airman.

"The spiritual aspect means having faith or a belief in something that's bigger than yourself and not necessarily limited to a religion," Laffitte said. "The notion of having a spiritual connection means a lot of things to different people, and the Air Force is not proselytizing one faith or another. It's a significant piece in people's lives. When you're facing something that's really giving you a hard time, your faith -- whatever that may be -- is something you can draw upon and a source of strength for a lot of people."

Laffitte said CAF is not a new concept, but merely one using existing resources available to all Airmen. There are assets available at every installation to help Airmen be mentally fit, especially if they hit a mental threshold.

For Airmen who are struggling with the physical portion, facilities like the health and wellness center can provide information one needs to shape up his lifestyle. As for the social pillar, Laffitte said this is an area the Air Force can work on.

"The digital age is undermining social contact," he said. "We need to bring people together to create a culture where people look at each other and understand what's going on."

Another piece of CAF is training. Recently, the first Air Force-level Master Resiliency Training Course ended. This class teaches students resiliency skills focusing on what Laffitte called the "power of positive psychology." After the instructor teaches the class, the students then teach the material back to their peers to make sure each student understands it.

The goal is to have a minimum of four master resiliency trainers from each base trained who will return to their home installations and create resiliency Ttaining assistants who together will teach resiliency courses across the installation.

"We create a culture that empowers people to go back to the basics where you know who your people are, "Laffitte said. "Bouncing back from adversity is just ordinary people doing great big things."