Every job is important

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Warren Barlow
  • 386th Expeditionary Operations Support Squadron commander
SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFPN) --  The Air Force team consists of individual Airmen accomplishing a wide array of jobs. 

On the surface, many of these jobs do not appear to be interrelated, but if you step back and view the big picture, you will find that they are all working toward one common objective. 

In reality, the big picture does not stop there. The Air Force is just a piece of the U.S. armed forces, working toward common Department of Defense objectives, which are just one arm our nation uses to achieve national objectives.

So what am I talking about? Every day, C-130 Hercules aircraft depart from a Southwest Asia air base transporting everything from passengers to equipment to forward operating bases in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa. The aircrews receive their mission taskings from Coalition Air Operations Center officials, and it is the aircrew's job to execute the tasked mission.

I have seen aircraft depart with only one passenger onboard. On the surface, that may seem like a waste to fly an airplane for just one passenger, but in the big picture, that one individual may be the critical link required to conduct an offensive operation to capture Osama Bin Laden. It is not the aircrew's decision to decide if the mission is important, but it is their job to execute the mission as tasked.

Let me give you another example closer to home. Members of the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing recently conducted some leaflet airdrop missions into Iraq. This was the first airdrop conducted into Iraq during my eight-month tenure. While planning for the mission it was determined that we did not possess all of the equipment required to execute the mission.

As it turned out, we were short on the required number of carabineer clips to execute the airdrop. At 2 p.m., I contacted the local contracting squadron for assistance and although I could not tell them mission specifics, I did let them know that we needed these by 6 a.m. the following morning. To top this off, it was a Saturday with the mission going down on Sunday. We attempted to purchase the carabiners through the area Army Air Force Exchange Service stores, but unfortunately, they were out of stock everywhere in the region. Next, contracting energized their off-base contacts, despite being the weekend, and they delivered the carabiners to me at 8 p.m. the same day.

Although a bunch of $8 carabiners does not seem like a big deal on the surface, they had enormous strategic effects. The airdrop went off without a hitch and the leaflets hit the target on time. Immediately, improvised explosive device-cell leaders became nervous and bugged out of their safe areas. Additionally, Iraqis learned that it was the coalition forces supporting their infrastructure improvements, and not the local government/militias as was initially believed. This mission went a long way to help win hearts and minds in the region and ultimately saved coalition lives by significantly reducing the local IED threat to U.S. and coalition ground forces.

Who would have thought that an Airman in contracting could have strategic impact in Iraq? 

Remember that no matter what your job is, it is important! It is imperative that leaders -- commanders down to first-line supervisors -- remind Airmen that their jobs are important and that their failure can have strategic impact. Mission failure is not an option and our nation's success in this war is in your hands.

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