Former CMSAFs offer advice

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Neil Spann
  • U.S. Air Forces in Europe Public Affairs
Two key members of Air Force enlisted history and former chief master sergeants of the Air Force are visiting with U.S. Air Forces in Europe airmen.

Retired Chief Master Sgts. of the Air Force Paul Airey, the first person to hold the title, and Sam Parish, the 8th CMSAF, are here as guest speakers for the command’s 2003 enlisted awards banquet May 23.

They also took time to give enlisted members some words of advice and an overview of how things have changes for the enlisted force since their times as the top enlisted airmen.

Speaking on issues such as leadership and promotions, the chiefs shared their viewpoints on how today’s noncommissioned officers can help themselves become better leaders of tomorrow.

“Time has moved on, and technology has changed a lot, but leadership has not changed that much in the 60 years that I’ve been around the Air Force,” said Airey. “I think we have better trained, better equipped and better informed people today which makes for better leaders.”

While today’s airmen may be better trained and equipped, the basics of leadership are also important, according to Parish.

“I’ve seen kick-butt leadership to group-hug leadership,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with the original style of leadership, and that’s one type of leadership that we need to get back to.”

The chiefs spoke at length about benefits and pay being important issues for all enlisted members.

“Airmen of today have so many benefits going for them far beyond what members of my era saw while serving in the Air Force; things that include increased pay, promotions, upgraded dining facilities, living quarters, increased support for our life skills, child development centers and family support centers,” said Airey. “All of these factors make for a better Air Force and a better quality of life for all Air Force members.”

These increased benefits also lead to better prepared airmen, said Parish.

“Now add the benefits of today with the education levels of today’s enlisted force and you have significant changes over the years,” he said. Close to 80 percent of all Air Force enlisted members have some college credit toward an associate’s degree, while another 10 to 15 percent of the enlisted force have bachelor’s degrees.

“We are now sending some of our enlisted airmen to the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, to complete their master’s degrees at the Air Forces expense,” said Parish. “Many of our enlisted folks are enrolling in other master’s degree programs through hundreds of universities offering educational opportunities at bases all over the world. With the continuing growth of education benefits offered to enlisted Air Force members, we will continue to have a better prepared force than at any other time in the Air Force’s history.”

The chiefs also gave their personal takes on retention in the Air Force.

“People tend to think that money is the driving factor toward our retention issues, but a majority of our people are not willing to stay or leave the Air Force because of money alone,” said Parish. “Most members stay in the Air Force because they like what their doing and they like the people that they’re doing it with. If we can create an environment that causes you to want to be a part of our Air Force and our way of life, then what makes you think our young airman today will not want the same things.”

While the Air Force environment is a driving force for retention, leadership also plays a hand in it, Airey said.

”Retention is a leadership problem,” he said. “The Air Force has worked a lot harder than in the past toward making the Air Force more attractive to airmen for the long haul. Retention starts with the enlisted supervisors. Since the majority of our enlisted airman work directly for master sergeants and below, these are the people that really control the retention rates.”

When asked about the current promotion system and if they thought it was fair, Parish said, “Life is not fair! The Weighted Airman Promotion System is the closest thing that we could come to allowing any promotion eligible enlisted member the opportunity to excel and achieve whatever ranks they desire up to master sergeant. Members can be what they want to be; it’s totally up to them. WAPS is a great system, and I think any thought of changing it should be looked at and thought-out very carefully.”

Airey, who was instrumental in instituting WAPS in the Air Force, said he feels the same way.

“I’ve had the opportunity of seeing this system grow from the ground-up, and I think it’s the finest promotion system of the armed forces,” since its inception in 1968, he said. “I don’t foresee or think the Air Force needs any big changes to the current system.”

Both chiefs offered some advice for today’s NCOs to help make them better leaders of tomorrow.

“We could talk about leadership, and we can make up all types of verbs and adjectives to describe leadership,” said Airey. “They would all be good words, but the one word I would use would have to be integrity. If you have integrity, you can’t be hurt, and you can’t be had.”

“We talk about leadership a lot,” Parish said. “If we want our NCOs of the future to continue to excel in our Air Force and continue to do the things that the Air Force needs to be done, then we need have some senior NCOs start thinking about… getting back to some of the basic core values that we’ve had over the years in our NCO and enlisted corp.

“You don’t need to be politically correct to be a senior NCO,” said Parish. “In my definition political correctness means we have to be smart and educated enough that when our commanders and supervisors ask us a question, we generally know what they want in an answer. ‘Unpolitically’ correct is telling people what they want to hear rather than telling them what they need to hear.”

“Our Air Force enlisted members are the envy of foreign forces all over the world,” said Airey. “The education level of the enlisted force today equates to the officer force that I knew when I initially entered the Air Force during the World War II era. We’ve come a long way, and nobody can be more proud of the enlisted force than I am.”

“Enlisted airmen today need to never forget that what they’re doing in uniform is unbelievably important, and there’s no job that is more important than any other job in our Air Force,” Parish said. “We can talk about how crew chiefs, security forces, munitions and civil engineers are all different career fields, and everyone takes pride in their job, thinking what they do is more important than the next persons job; that’s healthy for our force. But when we get to the point to where we have individuals thinking their job is more important than other individuals’ jobs in the scheme of things in our Air Force, then we need to re-evaluate where we’ve come from.

”Every job in the Air Force is equally important because the ultimate Air Force goal is to put our planes in the air and our weapons on the target. When were doing that, there’s nobody in the world whose life is more important than any other. Planes do not fly without base supply, planes don’t fly without intelligence and planes don’t fly without fuels or services personnel supplying the meals…,”Parish said.

“Everything we do in the Air Force focuses ultimately on the aircraft that we fly and maintain and our enlisted men and women doing everything for that individual who’s flying the aircraft and for the machine itself. Enlisted members should never down play their importance in the Air Force because if what you’re doing was not important, I’ll guarantee that you would not be wearing a uniform in today’s Air Force.” (Courtesy of USAFE News Service)