Mentorship, training essential to mission success

  • Published
  • By Col. Dawn Wheeler
  • USAFE Inspector General
As the top cop on a fighter base back in the 1980s, we got goal days based on the number of sorties each airframe flew every month. Known as utilization, or UTE, days, personnel were given the day off if the wing did well.

One day, the wing commander came to a staff meeting and told us a story of a young captain who had come to see him to complain.

The captain didn’t think the wing finance office should be closed on a UTE day; since finance members had nothing to do with the aircrews getting their day off, he felt it was unfair. The commander agreed to look into the matter and invited the captain to the weekly staff meeting.

During the meeting, the commander began going around the room asking questions, starting with finance. “Would you be as eager to fly if finance didn’t see to it that you were paid?” the wing commander asked the captain. Then, turning to me, he said, “Or if the major didn’t see to it that your plane was secured where you left it, what would you fly?”

Calmly, the commander went completely around the room asking simple but penetrating questions as he mentored us that day.

The commander’s point -- it takes everyone, from the Airman on the flightline to the commander’s support staff to keep the mission going. And, it takes each of our core capabilities to accomplish that mission.

As the inspector general team travels around U.S. Air Forces in Europe , I am constantly struck by the motivation, enthusiasm and dedication of the troops. What we find lacking is training. Not the just-in-time training to get specific jobs done, to deploy, or engage in combat, but, rather, the core capabilities training to be able to perform their primary jobs to the best of their ability.

A wing commander recently told me that having to take the time to get back to basics had actually been good for the unit. He said the troops walked taller and approached life with more confidence than he’d seen in a long time.

I have always concurred with the theory that when you “sweat more in peace, you bleed less in war,” and we accomplish that by providing quality in-depth training and proper equipment to our troops.

While much of what we do is determined by the day-to-day operations tempo, we need to take time out periodically to get back to basics.

Troops, drag a chief out for a cup of coffee and pick his or her brain about something you remember from technical school but have never actually performed.

Chiefs and senior non-commissioned officers, have a “troop” call at the end of a busy week, and talk to your people about some perhaps forgotten technical aspect of your job. Small informal get-togethers are a perfect time to impart information long unused, brainstorm new initiatives and recall and dissect recent incidents that could have gone better with a bit more preplanning.

USAFE Airmen are without a doubt the U.S. Air Force’s finest, and we owe them the mentorship and training needed to hone their skills.