Soul Mx - Veteran's Day

 This is part of a series shared ecumenically with members to whom I was assigned; the goal was to start conversation and deep thought, and many of these messages led to great conversations.

Veteran's Day
Original Publication Date: 14 November 2024

Let me start off by giving you my thanks for your contribution to defending the Constitution, to supporting our warfighters, and to working hard to make Cannon AFB and the 20th SOAMXS a great place to live and work. I hope you had an impactful Veteran’s Day and reflected on the meaning of the holiday.

 

As I was thinking about Veteran’s Day I was reminded that several very important dates in American Military history flank November 11^th. A day in 1965, made famous by the song 8^th of November, was one of the first major troop contacts of the Vietnam War. This was followed a few days later by that Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, made famous by the book We Were Soldiers Once…and Young, which became a movie of a similar title. The Battle of Ia Drang was a multi-day hellacious battle that both sides claimed to have won. The Air Force relentlessly provided air support and the battle claimed the life of Air Force Captain Paul McClellan who remains MIA to this day.

 

From the midst of that battle – where many men acted courageously – comes a quote that has shaped my life and motivated and encouraged me in many instances. Helicopter pilot Bruce Crandall, who would later receive the Medal of Honor for his actions during that battle, said,

 

I made up my mind during this flight that if the 1st Battalion lost this fight it would not because of the failure of the helicopter support.

 

Crandall would go on to fly 22 resupply and evacuation missions and his Medal of Honor citation describes it best, “Major Crandall’s voluntary decision to land under the most extreme fire instilled in the other pilots the will and spirit to continue to land their own aircraft, and in the ground forces the realization that they would be resupplied and that friendly wounded would be promptly evacuated.”

 

The helicopter pilots that day were not required to fly those missions – the established Standard Operating Procedures had led to a large number of medivac aircraft being waved off from the landing-zone – but they knew without their support, the battle was certainly lost.

 

So as we press on towards future battles (figurative and literal), let’s make up our minds that if the battle is to be lost, it won’t be for the failure of our support. Let’s make up our minds that our actions and attitudes may be the decisive factor in the success and victory of our lives, our coworkers’ lives, our squadron and other organizations, our Air Force, our nation, and our world. Many men and women have gone before us to attempt and accomplish great things, may their examples and words inspire us to do likewise; many will follow us, may our examples and words inspire them to act courageously and inspire and support others.

Soul Mx - Task Saturation

This is part of a series shared ecumenically with members to whom I was assigned; the goal was to start conversation and deep thought, and many of these messages led to great conversations.

Task Saturation
Original Publication Date: 14 November 2024

As we come into November it’s only right to talk about Thanksgiving and Thankfulness. It was Cicero that said, “Gratitude (thankfulness) is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” To be thankful is to be able to appreciate others, appreciate circumstances, and appreciate the opportunity to be useful. Cicero may disagree with me in equating thankfulness to gratitude, as many people have identified that to be thankful is one thing, but to be grateful is to do something with your thankfulness, it’s deeper than just mentally giving thanks, it’s an action.

As maintainers, Airmen, and human beings we have opportunities every day to be grateful, but sometimes we don’t see it. Have you heard the cynical quote, “My job does this cool thing where if you do your work well, you get to do someone else’s work too”? We have a word for that: bitterness, and it’s the opposite of gratefulness, but we do get to that point sometimes (oftentimes) and it’s easy to say, “I don’t need any of you, I’ll just do it myself!” Have you ever tried to do it all yourself? Could you run your shop, this squadron, this base, this MAJCOM, or this force by yourself?

If we’re honest, that would overwhelm us very quickly! Each of us has a limit to how much cognitive power, muscle, and time we have and when we reach that limit we become task saturated, where no more can be done, and what we are doing starts to suffer with mistakes and/or slowed responses and/or subpar performance.

I had the opportunity years ago to put my shop in the F-22 simulators; the training was invaluable on different systems and tactics, but what I gained the most was how much of the airplane is automated. It answered a question I’d had for years about why the F-22 didn’t have a WSO (Weapons System Officer) in charge of everything not related to just flying the airplane. The computers were trimming the flight controls, focusing the avionics, monitoring the engines, managing the battlespace, and some other cool stuff that I no longer remember because I’ve been debriefed; in short the computers were the WSO. The pilots (or in this case, the maintainers) just needed to point their airplanes in the right direction and shoot the bad guys. Even the landings are so assisted that maintainers with no prior training were safely getting airplanes on the ground, and many pilots say the F-22 is the easiest airplane they’ve ever landed. Because it’s all so seamless, it would be easy for the pilot to think they are some sort of superhero, but if they took the time to think about all of the systems and all of the people that made those systems work, there would certainly be much thankfulness (and there often is). Without those computers working to keep the pilot below the task saturation limit, there isn’t a person on earth who could fly an F-22 and certainly not make it lethal.

So this month, who and what can you be thankful/grateful for? Is someone not doing their job? Be thankful for the training and ability to take up the slack, and grateful for the opportunity to help them grow. Are you task saturated? Can you delegate, ask for help, or automate?

Soul Mx - Loneliness - 2-Man Lift

This is part of a series shared ecumenically with members to whom I was assigned; the goal was to start conversation and deep thought, and many of these messages led to great conversations.

Loneliness - 2-Man Lift
Original Publication Date: 3 October 2024

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced in 2023 that we are facing an epidemic of loneliness, finding that 33% of Americans feel lonely, and 25% of Americans have little to no Social or Emotional Support. They recently reiterated these statistics for 2024. The CDC seems to be an odd place for such a declaration to be made, since their lane is not loneliness and community, but the reason they are so concerned is because they found serious health ramifications stemming from social isolation and loneliness, to include decreased physical health, greater mental health challenges, increased risk of suicide, and shortened life expectancy. The see the danger, but how do we fix it?

 

As maintainers, we know that there are things on the aircraft that we can’t lift ourselves. I recently watched an engine-swap on a CV-22 and was impressed by half-a-dozen (or so) maintainers working seamlessly together to accomplish the task. If one person tried to accomplish a job alone which is designed for a team they are likely to fail, hurt themselves trying, or take considerably longer and be less effective than if they had support. Nobody is impressed by someone trying to lift something unliftable, rather there is great strength in recognizing that we need others to help lift (or even a crane/forklift/jammer/hoist, etc.) and asking for that help.

 

As maintainers, we know how to ask for help to lift physical weight—and 2-Man Lifts—but we often forget about the spiritual/non-tangible weights we are carrying. From a spiritual side I want to ask if you are in that 33% of people who feel lonely, or 25% who are extremely lonely? Statistics say that some of you are, and there is no shame in recognizing it. I noticed a meme go viral that addressed this problem in the circles I run it when it said, “Nobody talks about the miracle of Jesus having 12 close friends in his thirties” and that resonates with a lot of people, including me. How can we move towards healthy relationships and less loneliness, both for our sake and the sake of those around us?

 

Community is a powerful tool in combatting loneliness. Joining a car/motorcycle club, a religious organization, a private-organization on base, a book club, a gaming community, or just talking to people at work can do wonders for building our community. If you were going to join a community today, which one would it be? Maybe look them up when you’re done reading this e-mail. If you couldn’t think of one, why not ask your chaplain? Or Friend? Or Coworker? Or Supervisor? Or Chief? Or Commander? Or anybody? There is something out there for everyone, and a place where your interests and expertise can fight the loneliness someone is facing.

 

An old Scandinavian quote says, “A burden shared is a burden halved, a joy shared is a joy doubled.” Without someone to share with, we’re left doing the heavy lifting by ourselves, and we don’t want that weight to crush us! Isn’t less loneliness and more joy something we’d all like?

Soul Mx - Determining Your Purpose

This is part of a series shared ecumenically with members to whom I was assigned; the goal was to start conversation and deep thought, and many of these messages led to great conversations.

Determining Your Purpose
Original Publication Date: 9 September 2024

Following up on our training last week, I spoke on how to know, find, and excel in your purpose. When we don’t know our purpose or are working outside our purpose, we can feel like we’re not just failing, but failures. An MQ-9 that is being used as an Airliner, a CV-22 being used as a fighter jet, or a stapler being used as a hammer are likely to not just fail their mission, but be destroyed in the process…not because they’re worthless, but because they are not fulfilling the purpose for which they were designed to excel. Now that you’ve had a couple days to process, do you know, and are you fulfilling your purpose? If my purpose can be easily defeated by circumstances outside of my control, is it a big enough purpose? Do we even have a purpose? If you’ve heard me speak for any length of time you’ve heard me say,

“Your purpose needs to be outside of the Air Force, the Air Force can survive without you, you need to be able to survive without the Air Force.”

The reason your purpose should be bigger than the Air Force is because you will most likely live a long life after your service ends. If your purpose is in your job then a single debilitating injury that leads to a medical retirement will not only end your career, but your purpose as well! A major downsizing of the military could have the same effect. Or, many of us know of a Chief or Colonel who died six months after retirement, because when they hung up the uniform, they hung up their purpose.

But we have to be careful as well that our purpose is not so far outside of the Air Force that we aren’t any good to the nation or our fellow Airmen. Some examples would be those who are ALWAYS out taking classes or volunteering or at a second job. Don’t get me wrong, I love classes, and volunteering, but if the Air Force is a hindrance to your purpose or merely funding your purpose, I want to recommend you reevaluate what you’re on this planet for.

I just came from Air Force Global Strike Command; in years past they had a clarity of purpose in one of their mottos (when they were SAC): “Peace is Our Profession.” I love this motto because it captured a purpose that had fulfillment both inside and outside the Air Force: the idea that the reason for many Airmen’s existence was to prevent wars or win wars so completely that peace reigned in their lifetime. Many Airmen from the days of that motto will tell you that the Cold War didn’t just end, it was won, and their efforts were the direct catalyst that no significant amount of blood was shed between Soviets and Americans. I’m starting to hear the same language again and I believe it is an excellent reminder that by we are working peace in our world by making our enemies question their actions and saying to themselves, “Today is not the day; I can’t win today.”

This e-mail is not meant to tell you where to find your purpose, only to encourage you to look outside of yourself and your job for meaning in your life. There has been debate for a long time on where to find purpose. A famous painting by Raphael called The School of Athens captures
this debate, it depicts Plato pointing heavenwards for purpose, and Aristotle pointing earthwards. There are generally five places (according to Stanford University) people find purpose:

1. In a Deity
2. In the Improvement of the Soul
3. In Pragmatics (what works for you)
4. In Quantifiable Achievements
5. In Acknowledging the Transient Nature of Everything

Generally, good questions to ask yourself are:

1. What am I good at?
2. Are my talents being put to good use?
3. Am I fulfilling my calling/vocation?
4. Is there a better place/way for me to express my purpose?

As your chaplain, I would love to help you search for and find your purpose: a purpose that will benefit you for the rest of your life, and that will benefit the Air Force for as long as you serve. Regardless of where you find your purpose, take some time this week to evaluate where you have come from, where you are, and where you are going.

In closing, the United States Space Force posted a recruitment video with a pithy statement, “Maybe Your Purpose on This Planet is Not on This Planet.” Do you think Plato or Aristotle would agree with that more?

Soul Mx - Ops Checks

 This is part of a series shared ecumenically with members to whom I was assigned; the goal was to start conversation and deep thought, and many of these messages led to great conversations.

Ops Checks
Original Publication Date: 12 August 2024

Greetings,

It is popular in many faith traditions to say that “My faith is being tested” and/or “God is testing me” and/or “I’m being put to the test”, etc. This is said when we’re pushed outside of our comfort zone, stressed, and overwhelmed.

Sometimes we hear statements like that and think that the “test” is meant to break us, or to determine if we’re valuable enough, but that is not what is meant. The word test is more in line with “Ops-Check”, to determine if we are “airworthy”, capable, and effective. The test is to show where we can be stronger; where improvements can be made. In many historical cases the word “test” is a metallurgical word for “refine”, or to make more valuable. Doesn’t it sound more effective, pleasant, and beneficial to say, “I’m being refined”?

Many years ago when the F-22 was in its infancy we ops-checked a system on the ground—per the TO—using a power-cart; everything checked out. The next day when we put a pilot in the seat the system failed immediately and the mission was ground-aborted. After a little digging we determined the basic ops-check was ineffective to determine the airworthiness of the airplane and that particular ops-check in the future needed to be done on an engine run using full operating parameters.

When we “test” our airframes we often make sure they are effective in extreme circumstances pushing the airframe outside of its comfort zone: 110% torque, 105% N1, 100% max weight, max G’s, max deflection, task saturation, etc. But we don’t want to live in those extremes or we are likely to break things. My first airframe, the Bell 206L3, could exceed 100% torque for a couple of seconds in an emergency with no ramifications, but the recommendation was to keep it below 85% during normal ops to extend the service life of the mast and transmission among other parts.

As your chaplain, I want to ask how you’re being ops-checked: Where are you being put to the test? Where are you overwhelmed? How are you pushing yourself? How are you pushing others to grow beyond their comfort zones? Are you being pushed beyond the parameters you can sustain? What is your plan to operate in an effective, capable, worthy manner?

In one sense these are rhetorical questions, in another sense I’d love to hear your answers.

 

I’m looking forward to being your chaplain, and I hope we all “Ops-Check Good” in life and soul maintenance so that we’re effective for the Air Force, our community, and our world.

Soul Mx - Train Hard, Fight Easy

This is part of a series shared ecumenically with members to whom I was assigned; the goal was to start conversation and deep thought, and many of these messages led to great conversations.

Train Hard, Fight Easy
Original Publication Date: 24 February 2022

I took Airframe & Powerplant classes many years from an old RAF mechanic. He used to repeat the mantra, “Train Hard, Fight Easy.” That has stuck with me through the years and I’ve noticed that it applies to many things in life.

CMSAF Bass recently posted that one of the most important things about a leader is that “they care”. There was some pushback because caring means different things to different people, to some “caring” means hugs and singing songs, but I thought of two stories of people that cared in non-traditional ways, whose caring meant training, not coddling.

Herb Brooks coached the 1980 USA Olympic Hockey Team. The obvious team to beat that year was the Soviet team, which had been skating together for over a decade and had won the gold medal in the previous four Olympics. The rules specifically called for non-professional teams, so the USA team was comprised of college students who had never played professionally or even with each other. Herb Brooks pushed them so hard the team came together not just to beat the Soviets, but to prove that they were better than Brooks said they were. On multiple occasions while pushing them to excel in training, he would yell, “You don’t have enough talent to win by talent alone!” After agonizing preparation and team building and practice, the 1980 USA hockey team did go on to not only beat the Soviets, not only to win the Gold Medal, but to rise to the standards that Herb Brooks had set for them. He had cared for them by pushing them to be the best hockey players they could be.

In Vietnam, PFC (E-3) Sammy Davis (not the singer) was a cannoneer on Howitzer artillery. During the day his Sergeant, James Gant, would push them to train hard, often having them set artillery fuses with blind folds on, polish bullets so they wouldn’t foul in the newly developed M-16, and perfectly organize their shells, fuses, and charges, no matter how long they expected to be at a site—all in excruciating heat. Before a fateful night in 1967 Davis would describe Sergeant Gant as “the meanest sergeant I ever seen in my life…he was old, a bitter old sergeant of 27.” But then, on November 18th, 1967, the Artillery Site was attacked at 0200 by a reinforced enemy Battalion. During the battle 31 of 42 Americans were killed and all of the survivors were wounded. PFC Davis fought valiantly, firing on the enemy and administering care to the wounded. Then he came upon Sergeant Gant, seriously wounded, laying in the mud. As Davis applied a compress and a shot of morphine—remembering his training—he looked into Gant’s eyes and had the revelation, “I knew that he didn’t hate me – that he loved me. He shared with us the things that he knew was gonna help us survive.” Davis and Gant would survive the battle. Sammy L. Davis would be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his work that night; you may have seen him receive his medal, as it was footage of him that was featured in the movie Forrest Gump when Tom Hanks was awarded the Medal of Honor. Would Davis have survived that battle, or saved his fellow soldiers, without the training and push of his caring, albeit uncouth, Sergeant James Gant?

In my faith background we said, “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge.” and, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time…later it produces a fruit of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” Another way to say that is, “Train Hard, Fight Easy.”

Do you have someone pushing you to be the best? This doesn’t just apply to your military life, everything worth doing is worth doing well. If no one is pushing you, push yourself, and push those around you to be the best Airmen, Americans, humans, they can be. Is someone pushing you (in healthy ways) and it’s stretching you? Don’t think about the pain, think about the reward. If you feel stuck in a place where there is no challenge or way to push yourself, find a way to challenge yourself. If you feel stuck and have no idea what this looks like in your life, I’d love—as your chaplain—to help you find a way to excel in everything you do.

Soul Mx - Veteran's Day

This is part of a series shared ecumenically with members to whom I was assigned; the goal was to start conversation and deep thought, and many of these messages led to great conversations.

Veteran's Day Message
Original Publication Date: 12 November 2021

Let me start off by giving you my thanks for your contribution to defending the Constitution, to supporting our warfighters, and to working hard to make Ellsworth a great place to live and work. I hope you had an impactful Veteran’s Day and reflected on the meaning of the holiday.

As I was thinking about Veteran’s Day I was reminded that several very important dates in American Military history flank November 11th. November 8th, 1965, made famous by the song 8th of November, was one of the first major troop contacts of the Vietnam War. This was followed a few days later by that Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, made famous by the book We Were Soldiers Once…and Young, which became a movie of a similar title. The Battle of Ia Drang was a multi-day hellacious battle that both sides claimed to have won. The Air Force relentlessly provided air support and the battle cost the life of Air Force Captain Paul McClellan who remains MIA to this day.

From the midst of that battle – where many men acted courageously – comes a quote that has shaped my life and motivated and encouraged me in many instances. Helicopter pilot Bruce Crandall, who would later receive the Medal of Honor for his actions during that battle, said,

I made up my mind during this flight that if the 1st Battalion lost this fight it would not be because of the failure of the helicopter support.

Crandall would go on to fly 22 resupply and evacuation missions and his Medal of Honor citation describes it best, “Major Crandall’s voluntary decision to land under the most extreme fire instilled in the other pilots the will and spirit to continue to land their own aircraft, and in the ground forces the realization that they would be resupplied and that friendly wounded would be promptly evacuated.”

The helicopter pilots that day were not required to fly those missions – the established standard operating procedures had led to a large number of medivac aircraft being waved off from the landing-zone – but they knew without their support, the battle was certainly lost.

So as we press on towards future battles (figurative and literal), let’s make up our minds that if the battle is to be lost, it won’t be for the failure of our support. Let’s make up our minds that our actions and attitudes may be the decisive factor in the success of our lives, our coworkers’ lives, our squadrons and organizations, our Air Force, our nation, and our world. Many men and women have gone before us to attempt and accomplish great things, and many will follow us; may our examples and words inspire them to act courageously and inspire and support others.

Soul Mx - September 11 Message

This is part of a series shared ecumenically with members to whom I was assigned; the goal was to start conversation and deep thought, and many of these messages led to great conversations.

September 11 Message
Original Publication Date: 9 September 2021

Whether you remember vividly where you were, or if you weren’t born yet, the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 have indelibly changed the world in which we live. Twenty years later it’s hard to envision a world without the changes that were started on that day. Many of those changes were negative, but by the resiliency of the American people, many of those changes have been positive.

I was in a public speaking class at Arizona State University in the Fall of 2001, I remember the theme of the speeches transitioned from water rights, public transit, and Statute 28-910 (affectionately called the “stupid motorist law”) to how to stay courageous in the face of fear, the goals of terrorism and how to overcome them, and the role of a citizen-soldier in society. The latter topic was delivered by an Army National Guard member who announced a few weeks later that he was being deployed and then stopped coming to class. 9/11 was definitely a seminal moment in my life when I realized the gravity of hatred, destruction, and suffering in the world.

At the end of that semester I visited my local Air Force recruiter and was placed in the Delayed Entry Program until February of 2003.

I remember hearing disparaging remarks made about some of the Airmen who had joined prior to September 11th being a “fair-weather force”, but I had the honor of serving with men and women who rose to the occasion and who expertly transitioned our strategies and tactics from Cold-War era to precision strike capabilities. It wasn’t the war they joined to fight, but it was their adept skills learned over decades that allowed us to fight two major operations (Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom) simultaneously.

As the years have passed, water rights and public transit are still important, but now we add thriving in the face of fear, of living in the face of extremist hatred, and of serving our country and fellow human-beings both locally and globally.

Courage not being the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear. ~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt

In my faith tradition we place a premium on spiritual and emotional growth; John Newton—the man who wrote “Amazing Grace”—put it this way, “I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be.” Every event is an opportunity for growth or stagnation, an opportunity to grow in ways that we would not have grown had we not faced the challenge.

As we remember September 11th this year I want to encourage you to remember what is important in your life and to look for challenges you can rise to the occasion to make better. In this world we will continue to have challenges and heartbreaks and we will continue to have the opportunity to stand against extreme hatred. Sometimes these will be on a global scale, but more often than not they will be at a very local level where you can be the voice of reason and outpouring of hope amongst neighbors, family members, and coworkers.

Finally, we will process the 9/11 anniversary and the Afghanistan withdrawal in different ways; take a moment to tell someone something positive you’ve seen come out of the last twenty years, ask someone to hold you accountable to making your world a better place, and resolve to choose courage over apathy in the face of fear. If you need a confidential ear to discuss any of these, please know that my phone is always on.

Soul Mx - Sharpen Your Tusks

This is part of a series shared ecumenically with members to whom I was assigned; the goal was to start conversation and deep thought, and many of these messages led to great conversations.

Sharpen Your Tusks
Original Publication Date: 8 June 2021

It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to reach out to you. I’m on care-giver leave as I type this, taking care of my newest son Ryle. Despite being on leave I was spurred by CMSgt Hemingway’s retirement and farewell message to give a shout out while the moment is right.

CMSgt Hemingway often reminds us to “Stay Ready to Be Ready!” Every time I’ve heard her say this, I was reminded of one of Aesop’s Fables, called “The Wild Boar and the Fox”; because the copyright ran out about two-and-a-half millennia ago, here it is in full:

A Wild Boar was sharpening his tusks busily against the stump of a tree, when a Fox happened by. Now the Fox was always looking for a chance to make fun of his neighbors. So he made a great show of looking anxiously about, as in fear of some hidden enemy. But the Boar kept right on with his work.

“Why are you doing that?” asked the Fox at last with a grin. “There isn’t any danger that I can see.”

“True enough,” replied the Boar, “but when danger does come there will not be time for such work as this. My weapons will have to be ready for use then, or I shall suffer for it.”

Preparedness for war is the best guarantee of peace. (Source/Translation by the Library of Congress)

When I initially think of staying ready I think of maintaining our base, our B-1’s, and our munitions. But that is just a tiny piece of our mission and life. There is so much more to prepare for and grow into to get ready for the challenges that lay ahead. One way to get ready is to step up into the next higher position; as CMSgt Hemingway retires AFPC has long-ago begun the process of promoting a new Command Chief, and a new CMSgt, and a new SMSgt, and a new MSgt, all the way to recruiting a new Airman. We can’t wait until we’re promoted into our next job to prepare for that job, we should be preparing now. In my former career field (2A3), we always had the impression that promotion came slower than experience; it was/is popular after putting on the next stripe to answer the question, “How do you feel?”, with “I feel like I’m finally getting paid for the job I’ve been doing for the past year!”

We can prepare for our next challenge before it arrives a myriad of ways; one such way is seeking out experience from those who have done great things. I’ve never regretted time I’ve spent speaking with a senior leader like CMSgt Hemingway, in my almost two decades of talking to Chiefs I can name dozens who have shared useful and helpful information and who were diligent in making time for mentorship. We can also invest in taking college courses or reading good books/peer reviewed articles or listening to lectures from those who have studied and mastered difficult topics. When expecting a new baby you can be sure that I was reading parenting books and refreshing my past knowledge of raising tiny human beings.

A clear way that we see this—that I often emphasize in FTAC/ALS/etc briefings—is premarital counseling. Depending on the source you read, premarital counseling decreases the occurrence of divorce by between 10 and 50 percent. Preparation in this area has shown quantifiable results that getting ready will ensure you are ready when the need arises.

So as we keep Ellsworth AFB, our B-1s, our munitions, and our Airmen ready, take a moment today to consider how you can working to stay ready so you’ll be ready when you’re called upon to do hard things or when you’re the Wing Commander or Command Chief or civilian equivalent or other vital posiiton some not-so-distant years down the road.

I’d love to hear how you’re sharpening your tusks, and if you’re not, I’d love to help you find a way to start preparing so you’ll be ready to seize the opportunities that will come your way.

Big jobs usually go to the person who proves their ability to outgrow small ones. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Soul Mx - Be A Hero

This is part of a series shared ecumenically with members to whom I was assigned; the goal was to start conversation and deep thought, and many of these messages led to great conversations.

Be A Hero
Original Publication Date: 18 February 2021

Chief Vaden recently said something that really impacted me, he said,

People aren’t inspired by superheroes.

I had to step back and think about that, but I agree wholeheartedly. When I think about people who have inspired me, not a single one of them is a superhero, they are all human beings with less than super strength and super stamina.

But I’d say all of them are heroes in one way or the other. So how do you define a hero? I’ve always latched onto this quote from the movie, The Tale of Despereaux, the narrator says,

If you know anything about fairy tales, you know that a hero doesn’t appear until the world really needs one.

The hero is someone who is there to meet a need, to fill a void, to correct a wrong, to stand in the gap to protect those in danger. This definition of hero doesn’t require you to wear a cape or be allergic to kryptonite or get bit by a spider; it requires you to be willing to act. In a former career I was a “Bystander Intervention Implementer”, which you may remember was also called Green Dot. I loved that we were inspiring Airmen to act when there was a void to fill, a wrong to be corrected, a gap to be stood in, and a need to be met. As I taught those classes I loved seeing people realize that they had power to help within their capacity, and that they didn’t need special martial arts or Psy Ops or hostage negotiation training to save the day. They just needed to be willing to intervene, because often any intervention is better than no intervention.

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Case in point, one of my favorite movies is about a man who is a hero in his own mind, but no-one else would declare him a hero in any sense of the word. The movie is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. There are two versions, one from 1947 and one from 2013. It’s not so much the movie I really like: it’s the idea behind the movie. Walter Mitty’s circumstances change and he’s required to be the hero of the story. I very much enjoy the sentiment behind that movie because I know I am regularly the hero in my mind; when I hear of bad decisions my default thought is, “I could have done that better.” But then I think back to times when I was in similar situations and I didn’t do better. Instead of passing judgment I ought to think, “How can I do that better at Ellsworth? How can I help? What courageous thing do I need to do that if I don’t do it, it’s not going to get done?”

In my faith tradition we like to say, “Do not despise the day of small things.” The culmination of many of my heroes’ lives is what makes them heroes, no grand acts, no date to memorize, just a life of perseverance and an end goal. I recently read the biography of William Wilberforce, he fought from 1785 until 1833 to abolish slavery in the British Empire. Many of those years were very slow going with a great many setbacks and disappointments, but Wilberforce (and many others) pressed on, and the culmination of all of those years was worth all of the effort.

Is there room in your life for you to be the hero? What would that look like? How can you leave this Air Force and this world better than you found it? You can do it better than any superhero, because they’re not here, and they’re too busy worrying about supervillains than the real ills and needs of this world. One of the really simple things it means for me is answering the phone every time it rings. It may be spam or it may be someone who really needs help, I no-longer pause to think about whether I have time to answer or who it might be, it might be my opportunity to be the hero when someone really needs it.

Every person I consider a hero lived a life of steadfastness, of consistently doing the right thing, stepping up and confronting injustice and oppressors and filling needs, not despising the day of small things. While there are certainly flourishes of extraordinary courage, their courage was not in contradiction with their character, those flourishes were a magnification of who they were. I’d like to encourage you to live in such a way that you’re ready for that flourish of courage, but if it’s never needed, you’ll still leave a lifetime of hero-actions in your wake, that when added up will have done more than any superhero, because you will have inspired people.