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Lessons of the trade by Kristine Burnett, CS-18, Sitting Commander
UMDs
deciphered For your troops To download, Right click, Save As
ACSC Dirty Purples EPR/OPR/PRF
Guide Air
Force Academy Protocol web site
Colin Powell's Rules - They're
always boring, right? Guess what? Someday it will be
your turn. Learn now from those that figured it out
Deployment Packing List (minimum requirements)
DESERT DUTY IS GOOD DUTY None of this information is mandatory. Think about it, if it applies fine, if not, ignore it. It’s personal opinion based on previous parties held in Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia - Develop the mind set now that once you're there, you are there until you leave. Nothing is written in stone. - Plan for if you don’t take it with you, you won’t have it - Have personal affairs in order well before you leave. Who’ll take care of your car, pay your phone bill, cut your grass etc. - Make sure your family/SPOUSE understands the lack of communication. Mail is usually a 7 day, one way adventure. Morale calls are 10 minutes per week….WHEN the phone lines are available. E-mail SHOULD be available. Service is intermittent and business takes priority
THINGS TO TAKE AND WHY 1. Plastic bags. Couple different sizes. Used to protect your stuff when the sand starts blowing 2. Spare shower shoes. A blowout at an inopportune time may have you standing in the shower bare foot……this you don’t want 3. Padlock. You may get a locker that can be locked 4. Socket adapter. Turns tent light into individual light/socket. BX has ‘em for less than 2 bucks 5. Extra drawers/socks. The list of mandatory items is a minimum, laundry may not be available every 4th day 6. Entertainment….Puzzles, Cards, etc. Some sort of music device. But remember the security/sand issues, so you may not want the top of the line $500 CD player. If your taking magazines remember the Muslims rules on pornography/profanity. Muscle Magazines, Cosmopolitan, Car Magazines, may all be considered pornographic. Any question about it, leave it here 7. Clothes pins. Not just for drying clothes……hanging things in the tent, adjusting the air tube when it starts flapping etc. 8. Alarm clock (NOT ONE YOU PLUG IN)……unless your tent boss wants be the tents' alarm clock. I’d do it for my tent but that would mean you would be on my hours….and I tend to get up extra early. 9. Flashlight….getting into or out of a dark tent for the 0300 latrine run is a little easier if you can see 10. Extra checks. You don’t have access to a cash machine/ATM, but finance will cash checks, also; if you're already paying your bills from there who’ll send you more checks? 11. Pocket Knife…while improvising things in the tent you may need to cut something, helps opening MRE’s. 12. Sewing Kit…..self explanatory REMEMBER - You must wear your dog tags to the desert and while in the desert - You must HAND CARRY your mobility folder. In your checked baggage is NOT close enough - You must have your ID Card, LES and Line Badge on your person…in any of your luggage WON’T work - When you're told your processing time you should already be packed. In other words….You Know you're leaving now. Don’t wait till 2 hours before your processing time to pack, or arrange who’ll check your mail!!!!!!. - You are authorized two bags not to exceed 70 lbs each and one carry-on. Additionally you will be authorized pro-gear ie chem gear etc in addition to your personnel baggage. - Remember to bring your helmet, web belt, canteen and gas mask when you process and pick-up your real-world chem gear. - Contributed by Capt. Jeff Davies
77th Fighter Squadron "Gamblers" MANDATORY MINIMUM CLOTHING LIST FOR DEPLOYMENTS MOBILITY BAG The list below is the minimum clothing requirements for simulated or actual deployments. You must have these items when reporting to the unit assembly area with the proper insignia and a 60 day supply of toiletries. Personal clothing will be packed in soft luggage such as duffel bags, barracks bags, B-4 type bags, or commercial luggage with rounded corners. Trunks or footlockers will not be used. Personal baggage is limited to 2 pieces at 70 pounds per bag, excluding A, B, and C bags and tool boxes. Carry-on baggage will be limited to one piece not to exceed 9" x 15" x 24" in size. Authorization for excess baggage must be approved by the PDF NCOIC and annotated on TDY orders. Items worn apply toward requirements. General Colin Powell, the JCS [former] Chairman, has over the years collected thirteen rules or thoughts to live by. He keeps them on a small white card labeled "Colin Powell's Rules." 1. It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning. 2. Get mad, then get over it. 3. Avoid have your ego so close to your position that, when your position falls, your ego goes with it. 4. It can be done! 5. Be careful what you choose. You may get it. 6. Don't let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision. 7. You can't make someone else's choices. You shouldn't let someone else make yours. 8. Check small things. 9. Share credit. 10. Remain calm. Be kind. 11. Have a vision. Be demanding. 12. Don't take counsel of your fears or naysayers. 13. Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.
Not long ago I was asked to give a presentation on personal lessons learned from my experiences in combat during Operation DESERT STORM. So, I sat down and spent about an hour and a half just thinking and thinking and thinking … what can I put on this list—what great lessons have I learned and want to pass onto future generations? When I finished, I only had about 15 items, and I realized that none of them were lessons learned, not one of them. Every one of them was a person, or an event, or just a feeling I had. But I’ve never forgotten them and never will. And those are the things I want to talk to you about today. It’s important, before I start, for you to remember that every kind of combat is different. Aerial combat happens at about a thousand miles an hour of closure. It’s hot fire and cold steel; it’s instant death and big destruction; it happens like this (snaps fingers) and it’s over. Ground combat’s not that way, as you can imagine. Those of you who’ve heard infantry soldiers talk about it know it’s kinda endless time, and soaking fear, and big noises and darkness. It’s a different game. And you need different training to do it, and different types of people to handle it well and to provide leadership in that environment. But it doesn’t matter how many people you have standing beside you in the trenches, or how many people you have flying beside you in formation—combat, especially your first combat, is an intensely personal experience. Today, I’ll tell you some of the things I remember. You don’t have to see this picture very well—it’s an F-16 parked on a ramp with a helmet on the canopy rail. One week before the DESERT STORM air campaign actually started we were flying missions to northern Saudi Arabia to practice dropping simulated bombs at night on targets in the desert, so those of us who didn’t routinely fly night missions would be ready if the war started. On this particular night, after we’d “destroyed” our target, we hit a post-strike tanker and headed back to our base almost 400 miles away. We climbed up to about 42,000 feet, put the auto-pilot on and I leaned back in that 30º tilt-back seat and just kinda stared at nature. It was a gorgeous night. The moon was big and full and directly overhead, and I remember thinking, “I can’t believe how bright the desert moon is.” And out around the horizon, something I’d never seen before and haven’t seen again to this day, was a halo. A beautiful, huge white halo that went all the way around the moon, completely unbroken. I talked to my wingman later, and he said he did the same thing I did—we just stared at that thing all the way home, thinking, “I can’t believe how beautiful this is.” It’s one of those moments you have flying airplanes. I’ll never forget that halo …. I also won’t forget that when I landed that night my assistant operations officer met me at the bottom of the ladder and said, “Boss, we lost an airplane.” The name on the canopy rail in that picture belongs to a young captain named Mike, who’d joined us in the desert only two weeks earlier because he’d stayed back in Utah to get married. He and his wife had been married for two weeks when he told her that he had to go to war and join the boys. He’d just finished his three-ride local checkout and was on his second night ride. We think that somehow he got a light on the ground confused with his flight lead’s rotating beacon and tried to rejoin on it as he headed for the tanker. Mike hit the ground going over 600 miles an hour, 60º nose-low, inverted and in full afterburner. He died relaxed. You know, I don’t think “dying relaxed” was good news to his wife when I called and spoke to her after we’d confirmed he was in that smoking hole, or to his Mom and Dad when I called them. I won’t forget those phone calls …. or that great young American who, like so many before him, died in the company of warriors, in a place where warriors were called, at a time when warriors were needed most. I’ll never forget Mike …. And I’ll never forget sitting at his memorial service two days later, looking at this airplane with his name on the canopy rail, the helmet with his name on the visor cover, his spare G-suit hanging under the wing, and his crew chief saluting the jet, while bagpipes played “Amazing Grace” in the background. Every fighter pilot on base was wearing these big stupid sunglasses so nobody would know they were bawlin’ their eyes out. I won’t forget staring at that airplane thinking, “How many more of these are we going to have when the war starts?” The night before the war actually did start, our wing commander told the squadron commanders that we were “kicking it off tomorrow morning.” So we gathered our squadrons together at about 5 o’clock in the afternoon and gave most of them the first briefing they’d seen on our previously-classified Day 1 mission. Then I did what I thought was a real “commanderly” thing. I told them all to go back to their rooms and write a letter to their family. And I told them that before I gave them their aircraft tail number in the morning, they had to hand me their letter, so I could ensure it was delivered if they didn’t come back. In that letter, I wanted them to shed all of the emotional baggage you take with you into combat—I didn’t tell my wife this; I didn’t do that; I didn’t hug my daughter; I didn’t tell my son I loved him; I didn’t call my parents …. I told them they didn’t fly until I got that letter. Which shut ‘em all up for the first time since I’d known them! They headed out the door, and I was feeling pretty proud of myself and patting myself on the back when my ops officer came up to me and said, “What a great idea!” I nodded knowingly, and he added, “By the way, you can give me your letter before I give you your tail number in the morning.” Now, if you haven’t had the pleasure of sitting down and thinking about your family the night before you think you may die; if you haven’t tried to tell your children that you’re sorry you won’t be there to see their next ballet recital or watch them play little league baseball, or high school football, or graduate from college, or meet their future spouse, or get to know your grandkids; or if you haven’t had the pleasure of telling your parents and brothers and sisters what they mean to you; or tried to tell your wife how the sun rises and sets in her eyes; and tried to do it all on a piece of paper, at midnight, 9,000 miles away from home, then you haven’t lived. I’d recommend it. I won’t forget writing that letter …. This is a picture of the base where we were stationed. The whole thing is about two miles long and about a mile wide. You can see the main runway, a parallel taxiway, and on the left side of the picture there’s a road that ran the whole length of the base. In the upper left corner is where the tents and hooches were for the officers, and about halfway down the field is where the tent city was. That next morning we got up about 1:30 a.m., because we had a 2:15 briefing, All my guys met in the chow hall and we had breakfast, then we jumped in cars to drive to our mass briefing, which was down here at the lower left-hand corner of this slide. As we drove down that parallel road, two things happened. The first was that the night fighters from the 421st Fighter Squadron lit their afterburners as part of the first launch of the Gulf War. And at 20-second intervals as we traveled down that road, they lifted off going the other way, one at a time. They each accelerated to about 400 miles an hour, pulled the nose straight up and climbed to avoid possible SAMs at the end of the runway; pulled the engine out of afterburner, and disappeared. And I suddenly realized that this was the first time I’d ever seen airplanes take off with no lights on—they were “blacked out” for combat. It was pretty sobering. And then halfway down this road, one of the guys in the car with me says, “Boss, look at this,” and he points out the right side of the car. And on the right side of that road were thousands of people. The entire population of our tent city had come out of their tents when that first afterburner lit, and they were standing along this road. They were in uniforms, they had just gotten off work; they were wearing jeans; they were wearing cutoffs; they were wearing underwear, pajamas—everything. Not one of them was talking. They were just watching those airplanes take off; they knew what was going on. The other thing that I noticed immediately was that all of them were somehow in contact with the person next to them … every single one of them. They were holding hands, or holding an arm, or had their arm around someone’s shoulders or their hand on someone’s back, or they were just leaning on each other. These were people who didn’t even know each other. But they were all Americans; they were all warriors; and they were all part of the cause. I will never, ever forget their faces coming into those headlights, then fading out. They’re burned into my memory. Later that morning, after our mission briefing, we went to the life support trailer where my squadron kept all our flying gear. All 24 airplanes were flying, so 24 of my guys were going, and I was lucky enough to be the mission commander for this first one. Now, anybody who’s been in a fighter squadron, or any kind of flying squadron, knows that Life Support, as you’re getting ready to go, is a pretty raucous place. You’re giving people grief; you’re arguing about who’s better at whatever—something’s going on all the time. It’s fun. This morning, there wasn’t a sound. I got dressed listening to nothing but the whisper of zippers as people pulled on flight gear. I walked out of the trailer and left the door open so the light from inside shined out in a little pool around the trailer steps. The rest of the base was blacked out, and we were under camouflaged netting and couldn’t see anything outside this trailer. As my guys came down the steps I shook each one of their hands and just nodded at ‘em; nobody said anything. I watched as, one by one, they turned and disappeared into the black. And as each one left, I wondered if he’d be coming back that afternoon … we didn’t really know what to expect from this war. When the last one had gone, Master Sergeant Ray Uris, who ran my life support shop and had been standing in the doorway watching this act, walked to the bottom of the steps, shook my hand, and watched me disappear. I’ll never forget watching their backs disappear in the dark …. One of those backs belonged to an incredibly talented young weapons officer named Scott, probably the best fighter pilot in our wing at the time. About the second week of the war we flew a mission against the nuclear power plant south of Baghdad. Scott was one of the flight leads that day. It was easily the toughest mission my squadron flew during the war because the Iraqis defended the area south of Baghdad, and they really defended the nuclear power plant. From about 25 miles to the target, till we got to the power plant, the pilots on that mission will tell you they saw 50 to 100 SAMs in the air. I remember screaming and cussing to myself all the way to the target, until it came time to roll in—at which point your training takes over and you kinda go quiet—until you drop your bombs, and you start screaming and cussing again. This was scary. Scott’s wingman got hit as we came off target. An SA-3 exploded underneath his airplane and blew off his fuel tanks. It put about 100 holes in the airplane–70 of them through the engine and engine compartment, which isn’t good in a single engine F-16. For the next 2½ hours Scott escorted him to several different emergency bases because the weather had rolled in and closed some of them and they couldn’t get him on the ground. While his wingman struggled with the crippled jet, Scott worked emergency tanker diverts to get them gas; coordinated with AWACS for clearance to the next divert field; arranged safe passage through air base defenses; and kept assuring his wingman that he was gonna make it. He was phenomenal; he helped save this guy’s life. So he landed about 2 hours after the rest of us did. When I heard he was on the ground, I left my debrief to see how things had gone with his wingman. It was dark by this time. And as I walked out to the life support trailer, I came around a corner under that darkened out camouflage netting and ran into something. And then realized it was Scott. He was leaning against a bunch of sandbags, just holding onto them with both hands, and shaking like a leaf. He couldn’t walk, he couldn’t talk, he couldn’t do anything. All he could do was stand there and shake. The guy had nothing left. All his adrenaline was gone. He’d given everything he had to give that day. As I’m trying to figure out what the heck to do with Scott, the door to the life support trailer opened and a young, 19-year-old life support technician named Shawn walked out, looked at what was going on, and said, “Boss, I know you’ve got stuff to do. I’ll take care of him.” And I said, “Well, let me help you get him inside.” And he said, “Boss, you’ve got stuff to do. I’ll take care of him.” So I left. I saw Shawn helping Scott up the steps to the life support trailer as I went around the corner. About 5 hours later, I left the next day’s mission planning cell and went to see how Scott was doing. When I came around the corner of his tent there was Shawn, sitting in the sand in front of the tent shakin’ like a leaf, ‘cause he’s still wearing just the BDU pants and T-shirt he had on in life support. This was January in the desert, folks; it was cold outside! I said, “Shawn, what are you doing here?” and he said, “Sir, the major finally got to sleep. I was afraid that he might wake up, and if he does, I wanna make sure I let him know everything’s okay.” You’ll meet lots of Shawns in the Air Force; I’ll never forget this one …. This is a Catholic priest–Father John. Father John was our squadron chaplain. The first day of DESERT STORM, I got to my jet and standing right in front of the nose of the jet was Father John. At first I thought he was a crew chief until I got close enough to see who he was. Now, Father John was popular with us because he was the first guy to buy you a whiskey; the first guy to light up a cigar; the first guy to start a party, and the last guy to leave. He also would’ve been the first one to wade into Hell in his BVDs to pull you out, if he had to. We knew Father John real well; he fit in great with a fighter squadron. Anyway, as I got to the airplane, Father John just said, “Hey, I thought you might like a blessing before you go.” I immediately hated myself, because I consider myself fairly comfortable in my religion, and I’d never thought of that—too many other, wrong priorities on my mind at the time. So I knelt down on the cement right there in front of the jet, and Father John gave me a blessing. And then I finished the preflight on my airplane. As I’m ge |
Lincoln on
Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times
Love
'Em and Lead 'Em
Abuse
'Em and Lose 'Em: Eighteen Leadership Styles That Were Made in
Hell
Follow
Me II: More on the Human Element in Leadership
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Me III: Lessons and the Art and Science of High Command
Small
Unit Leadership: A Commonsense Approach
Common
Sense Training: A Working Philosophy for Leaders