Retired first sergeant leaves special legacy

  • Published
  • By Steve Pivnick
  • 81st Medical Group Public Affairs
KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. (AFNS) --  When Senior Master Sgt. Clayton French was honored at his Nov. 20 retirement ceremony, most of the guests in attendance learned the 81st Medical Operations Squadron first sergeant would leave a significant legacy to the service to which he devoted more than 28 years of his life.  Sergeant French had written a base newspaper commentary that became the inspiration for "The Airman's Creed."

Recounting Sergeant French's career, Lt. Col. Jane Denton, 81st MDOS commander and presiding officer, told the guests Sergeant French had already completed college and was married when he visited the Air Force recruiter.

"His father had been in the Air Force in the 1950s, so Sergeant French decided to join. He was a few years older than his peers and that maturity garnered him supervisory responsibilities immediately, starting with dorm chief at basic training. He learned his career field assignment while in basic: He was to become an inertial navigation and radar system specialist and his tech school was going to be Keesler.

"From tech training, his first assignment was Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark., which became his home for 12 years. Then it was on to Howard AFB, Panama, where he and the family enjoyed seafood and culture. By then he had finished his master's degree in education and decided he wanted to use it to teach. So he put in to be a professional military education instructor at the NCO Academy, again at Keesler AFB. He had only taught two classes before getting his diamond and becoming a first sergeant. This took him into his fifth year here and soon it was time to move on.

It was during his next assignment as a first sergeant at Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C., he would write the article that evolved into "The Airman's Creed."

As Colonel Denton explained, "While at Seymour Johnson he was deployed to (an airbase in Southwest Asia). When he returned to Seymour Johnson, he wrote an article for the base paper that inspired many and made it to the desk of (then) Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley. This article, 'I Am an Airman,' epitomizes Senior Master Sgt. Clayton French Jr. and was the catalyst for a very significant event that will have a lasting effect on the Air Force.

A week or so after his ceremony, Sergeant French recalled the genesis of "The Airman's Creed."

"Although written for my base paper, it soon circulated Air Force-wide. (General Moseley had read it at his staff meeting.) I didn't know it was happening until I came back from leave and "Systems" had shut down my e-mail account because my in-box had exceeded the size limit by 50 times. General Moseley did contact me, stating that my words put him 'on fire to create a single Air Force, one that we can be proud of.'  Shortly afterward, I was invited to be on the small team that created 'The Airman's Creed.'

"The whole process was done via e-mail." he said, "and much of it is shrouded with mystery; a whole lot of e-mailing back and forth asking, 'What do you think of this?', etc., and then one day it was completed without a final, 'What do you think?'

"I've never been able to write about the experience because every time I tried, it sounded so self-serving. I've always been very uncomfortable being in the spotlight."

To read Sergeant French's original commentary, click here: http://www.randolph.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123037286.

To read the Airman's Creed, click here:  http://www.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-070418-013.pdf