SECAF visits deployed Airmen, shares insight

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  • By Tech. Sgt. Paul Dean
  • 407th Air Expeditionary Group Public Affairs
ALI BASE, Iraq (AFPN) --  The world and the Air Force have gone through remarkable changes since Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne hung up his Air Force uniform more than 30 years ago.

The enemies, tools to fight them and tactics are all different now.

But just six weeks into the job, the secretary visited Airmen deployed supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom to gauge their warrior spirit and offer insight into how he might ensure Airmen remain the best trained, highly motivated and most committed members of the greatest air power in the world.

During a visit to the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing at a forward-deployed location Dec. 17, the secretary discussed where he sees the Air Force going during the next decade.

“I see the Air Force continuing its transformation efforts because it has now achieved its quest of stealth, speed and precision,” Secretary Wynne said. “Now we need to move toward becoming lean, lethal and agile as a force structure. This is going to result in a more compact, highly capable force. This move will emphasize that we are going to continue to expand our ‘reach back’ as we have been doing.”

The secretary said the Air Force is going to continue to dominate air and space and will become more interdependent.

That interdependency is exhibited even now as the air operations center contains Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors and Marines as well as special operations, Secretary Wynne said.

“This tells me that we are relying on our partners and they are reliant on us to win this war,” he said. “Jointness is here and now as well as it’s going to be in the future. It is really all about protecting each other and understanding the capabilities each of our force elements brings to the battle.”

After his visit to the deployed location, Secretary Wynne stopped here Dec. 19, answering Airmen’s questions about mission capability and quality of life while listening intently to success stories from the 407th Air Expeditionary Group, 777th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron and the Iraqi air force Squadron 23 (Transport).

And although he is still transitioning into a leadership position charged with global missions, a roster of almost three quarters of a million men and women, and billions of dollars in assets, the secretary offered glimpses of future possibilities: deployments as part of the promotion process, the ongoing search for the “right” deployment length, continuing force shaping issues and enhanced communication options with home for deployed Airmen.

“Three months was simply too short,” Secretary Wynne said of deployment lengths. He also noted that the current four-month rotation that most Airmen are assigned isn’t really a cut and dry 120 days when pre-deployment communication and coordination time are added. However, any possibility of re-timing rotation start dates to avoid Airmen missing too many “special dates” during a deployment could be a juggling act with so many different days being special to individual Airmen.

Trying to time rotations so that Airmen holding one religious conviction don’t miss important holidays would be offset by Airmen of another religion. Add to this the importance others may place on birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine’s Day, etc. and the problem becomes unsolvable, the secretary said in reply to the question asked by Airman 1st Class Grant Gers, 407th Expeditionary Operations Support Squadron.

Taking everything into consideration, balancing mission requirements and frequency of deployments, the Secretary said, “Maybe six months is the better and right number,” for deployment lengths. “But that’s the best answer I can give after only six weeks (in office).”
 
The percentage of Airmen who deploy multiple times while others remain at home station is a hot issue for many deployed servicemembers and brought up by Senior Airman Jonathan Oakes, 407th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron.

“Just as it’s natural to think that in the Navy a Sailor should spend a certain amount of time at sea, I think Airmen should spend a certain amount of time down range,” the secretary said. “It gives (Airmen) a firm understanding of what’s going on and why (the Air Force and the current missions) are necessary.”

The secretary also offered an analogy about a barrel of water with the spigot placed too high: Only the water above the level of the spigot comes out -- over and over again, the remainder never leaves the barrel regardless of how much water you add.

Somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of Airmen haven’t deployed, Secretary Wynne said.

“We need to move the spigot lower on the barrel and get more Airmen involved in deployments,” the secretary said. He offered the possibility of lower-tasked Air Force Specialty Codes deploying in positions outside their career fields and noted that there’s a good possibility the promotion process may include deployment information in the future.

Whether in Iraq or elsewhere, one of the most important things during a deployment is an Airman’s ability to communicate with home, the secretary said. It’s a quality-of-life issue that he’s very concerned about. Secretary Wynne is certain that network vulnerability issues currently preventing access to popular Web based e-mail accounts can be overcome.

“We are more concerned with (cyber) tactical security than some. But we need to look not just at why we can’t offer the (Web e-mail) services but how we can change things and provide them,” Secretary Wynne said in reply to a question from Senior Airman Roshad Mays, 407th Expeditionary Communications Squadron.

The secretary addressed the largest topic, force-shaping issues, after a question from Senior Master Sgt. Darron Williams, 407th EOSS.

The problem needs to be looked at in terms of a balance among talent and hardware, with the end result being a match between the people talent, planes and other hardware, the secretary said. Today’s advanced fighting tools are more expensive and require less manpower to operate and maintain.

But, “all of the cuts you hear about aren’t just from the (active duty) Air Force,” he said. The secretary pointed out that any force shaping is based on the total force -- active-duty, Guard, Reserve and civilians. Likewise, any force shaping will be segmented across the same manpower spectrum.

He expressed his heart-felt gratitude to all the men and women serving in Southwest Asia.

“I’d like to thank of all of our Airmen in the Total Force, all of whom are volunteers, for spending time away from home and spending time with their unit to really make this joint total force victorious on the battlefield,” he said.

“I’d especially like to thank the deployed Airmen during this holiday season for being a witness to the miracle in Southwest Asia -- bringing freedom and democracy to two dictatorial countries. I don’t think in our generation we’re going to see another opportunity like this, and it makes me really proud to serve with magnificent people who see this mission as clearly as I do. It is the talent and the persistence of the bravery of our Airmen that really makes our Air Force second to none.”

Secretary Wynne seems poised to make sure the Air Force is fighting the appropriate fights with the proper tools, the best Airmen, and Airmen who are not only the best at what they do, but also the best taken care of.

(Senior Airman Cassandra Locke, 379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs, contributed to this article.)