***Sneak Peek***MBRS 83: The Air Force Is Soft—And It’s the NCOs’ Fault (Yeah, I Said It)

It is time for the NCO Corps to claim their influence again. When you get out there, be good at your job. Be professional, look the way you should, stop asking permission for everything, and be willing to get chewed out every once in a while. Take some risk, take some initiative, fix the airmen when you see them. It is your job to instill the discipline. It is your job to make sure that they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. Go! Hello members, it's Trent here, OnesReadyPodcast. You know that, I know that. This is a members only podcast, which means I can say whatever I want. Right? Y'all paid for this, y'all paid for me to talk a little bit more like the team. So honestly what happened was, the reason I'm here sitting by myself, kind of sad about it, is Jared is doing whatever Jared is doing. He actually said though he wasn't going to be here this weekend. Aaron, Aaron's life is chaos, and I don't feel like texting him a whole bunch of times, asking if he's going to be here. So here we are, just the however many of you there are and me to talk about what we're going to talk about today. And it's interesting that I have a subject already lined up that I really, really want to talk about. I'm not sure it's really members only thing, because it's, we'll see. We'll see if I can get ranty enough to really give you your money's worth, which is my goal. But as always, make sure you're caffeinated. That is like 80% of my personality. My favorite things about sharing all the white monster memes and adopting like that thing is how concerned people are when you just start talking about monsters all the time. When people are like foodies on Instagram and they post every meal that they eat and all this other crap and cooking, especially like the sweets and all that, people don't blow up their page and they're like, bro, I'm concerned about you. Are you really into baking and cookies and all that other stuff? But it's like, man, you throw a few memes out there about consuming a gram of caffeine every day, looking at you, Marcus, Ruelis, Freitas. People get real concerned. So I think it's funny. My blood work is still pretty good. You know, ish. So we're going to keep on that train. So let's get into this. So one of the things that I've noticed, I was talking to a buddy the other day who was doing some work. He's a retired guy. He was doing some work on an Air Force base and him and I were supposed to be talking about one thing and obviously started talking about something else. So the story isn't I've had this exact same experience as he had. He went to a base and he was like just observing and kind of like, hey, what's going on? What's right? What's wrong? Obviously, all of us retired guys, we go in there and we're being paid to assess and to help the Air Force fix things. Right. As a government contractor, I like to tell people, I'm your unemployed friend. I get to go in there and and and everybody that's activity and GS employees to a lesser extent, they're all pretty busy and they have real jobs that they have to do. And that's why contractor contractors exist. So it's a weird place where contractors can be like the worst thing ever. Like everybody knows, like the dirty, skeezy contractors or I'm your unemployed friend. Tell me what you think is going on or a problem that you want me to fix and I have the bandwidth to go in there and fix it. So this is kind of what this guy was doing. Very preliminary stages of going to to assess this, some of these situations. And he was there was a chief or let's say an E nine that he ran across. And this dude had fully adopted the the victim mentality when it comes to like the new folks coming to tech training or or new folks coming into the Air Force. And and said some pretty ridiculous stuff. So like and then their solutions are always like the wrong solution. So. So to skip to the end, it's everybody's problem except for this guy's problem. So like this is a chief and I've run into this with with E nines, NCOs, everybody across the board. And I kind of want to shape this around NCOs because like also to me, the difference between the NCO and the senior NCO is mostly academic. You can say that it's different, but it's like it's just a graduated level of responsibility and an experience or it's supposed to be right. But this this dude was like, these kids coming out of basic training as soon as they get here, they lose all form of discipline and they're all over the place. You know, like this this this classic. BMT is obviously not training these these young airmen well enough or instilling enough discipline in them in the seven weeks that they have them. Other things is like, like you need to tell the general that he needs to focus on where I'm at right now and tell us what to do and blah, blah, blah. Everybody's problem except for his. So as soon as my buddy started talking about this, I was like, yo, dog. So first of all, I agree with both things and disagree at the same time. I agree that BMT, the basic training within the Air Force is not doing what we want it to do to the level that it should be happening right now. Right. When we talk about just discipline, they do a pretty good job. And to be fair, just to start with, you know, I'm not a big fan of the fair just to start off here. This is not I'm not attacking the MTIs. Right. This is like a system problem and less of a people problem when it when it you fix some of the systems, then we can talk about whether or not the individual people are doing their job or not. But the lack of discipline, the it's just not hard enough so they don't feel like they've earned anything. There's no transfer transformational process that happens and it's difficult to do that in seven weeks regardless. Um, but I agree that maybe BMT is not what it should be. However, this E nine is like they come off the base off the bus and they come to us and they don't have discipline and I'm like, hold, hold on right there. Big chief. That's your fucking job. Like, like these people act like they're they're powerless to do anything about it. Like you, you have the access, you have the authority, you have all the things that you need to fix that problem. Like, and you're not going to convince me otherwise. It's it like if the the students getting off the bus are not acting the way that you want to fix it. And I'm pretty sure I know where the problem is. Is this dude, the one of the solutions that he jumps to is like, you need to tell the general, the general is not fucking in charge here, dude. He's not. You're in charge. And this is one of the big problems. I think what the NCO core in general today is we've lost that that initiative, that boldness to just go after something. Now, now I was talking to my buddy about some of this as well. And we were running through examples. And so obviously I was an instructor within ATC on the special warfare side for a long time. And it was it's as a guy coming over that didn't go through like the pipeline and seeing, you know, how we do business and what we do was very enlightening. This is one of the reasons that I actually really care about the training side and all this, you know, the products that we're creating these days, because there's so much goodness in what we do and how we do it. And my saying is perfect, but there's a lot of goodness to it. But I remember in 2008, maybe. So this, we had a trainee die down at Lackland. And one of the things that happened was the the general at the time came down and said, you all are not allowed to do your motivational training or whatever it is that we're calling it at the time, the remedial training, the drops, the smoke sessions and all the other things. Because to be fair, some of the some of the guys down at Lackland, maybe didn't follow the procedures the way that they should have ended up being a preexisting condition. I'm pretty sure. But like it was it was a it was a messed up situation. So beyond that mess of situations, we had about a year where technically our hands were tied. We're not allowed to drop the students were not allowed to do X, Y and Z and all that other stuff. But guess what? I during that year, it might have been even harder for the trainees. So the point of the story is like the the special warfare guys, the instructors, especially your line instructors, you can come down with whatever policy you want. And and you can try to make it as easy as you can on the trainees. And there might be a couple of bumps in the road where we it takes us a minute to pivot and find a way to create the product out the, you know, going to the the force that we need and then find our our our new way of doing business. But we're going to find that that solution. And that solution is to make sure that the trainees go through enough hard stuff. Make sure the trainees learn the skills or the candidates learn the skills that they need to to be worthy of putting on the funny hat to uphold the legacy not of not of me, but of the entire career field of the entire community. Like, well, we weren't allowed to drop students. We went crazy in other ways. Like you can modify your workouts. You can modify all kinds of other stuff. And by the way, your boss is not sitting there looking over your shoulder every single day to make sure that that you're not, you know, doing something that quote unquote, you're not supposed to do. So that that that that buy in, right? So like, we have NCOs that don't have a buy in and I don't think have a full understanding of what it is that they're trying to do. And I'm not saying every SW instructor has like this like deep level, you know, you know, high level educational understanding of what it is that we're doing. But they are very invested in making sure that the students experience the things that they need to experience. So that when they get on team, they're not a danger to themselves. They're not a danger to their their teammates, our friends. And and they're not a danger to the mission, right? And I just don't see that as it's funny. Retiring and like kind of stepping back and then reinserting into some of the regular Air Force isms and seeing it from the contracting side. We it's weird because like we I always want to think like we're not that much different. You know what I mean? Like everything's hard. It's just a timeline thing. Like I've said all these things before, like like over a 20 year career, most of these career fields are going to do enough hard stuff where you know, like that they deserve my respect or whatever it is, or it's the same thing, which they have my respect. And I don't think I'm better than the regular Air Force. But when you look at like individual by individual and organization by organization and you look at the level of buy in and give a shit about what it is that they're doing, it's just not the same. And I don't think it was always that way. And I think one of the reasons that I thought the Air Force writ large was a lot closer to the where where I ended up in my career was I think in the beginning it was that way. It was that way. We had people that were very bought in. We had people that were invested. We had people that when the the boss came down and gave a ridiculous order, it would either say like, Hey, no, that's not how that works. And with the education process begins, or we are we're sneaky, little conniving enlisted folks, and we just find a way around it to still do the thing that needs to be done because we understand at the end of the day, we understand the mission where the rubber meets the road much better than the officer corps. And it's not a dig necessarily at the officer corps, but that's not their job. That's our job. That is our job. And especially as NCOs, we need to be. We need to be a lot more bold about the way that we go about things. One of the things that happened when I was in E five, and I talked about this a lot, like it's like this like, perfect stage in my career, where I was arrogant enough to think that I actually knew anything. And I was put in charge or put in a position where I could actually make changes for a career field. And I just did it. I wasn't asking anybody's permission, because no one else understood what it was exactly that I was trying to do. And we need more of that, I think in the Air Force, you need to dare your people to do it. But like, I don't think this is an officer problem. It's not their job to fully understand the NCO Corps. It's our job. And so when I look at these things and I think about that chief at that base, I think our our our staff sergeants and our tech sergeants are probably ready to light these kids up when they come off the bus and to reset the discipline expectation for them when they're at tech training, or when they're brand new in the Air Force, or anything. And we're talking about setting the culture and the NCO Corps owns the culture. Like that is that is our job. Excuse me. I think I had a little sneeze because I'm a little light on caffeine this morning. They'm only about 300 milligrams and some trying to catch up. So let's get to NCOs. What are NCOs supposed supposed to do? Well, if you if you just Google it, when you let the AI, the large language model or whatever it is, pull in all the sources, this is what it says. Non commissioned officers are responsible for leading and supervising junior enlisted personnel, ensuring they understand and execute their tasks effectively. They also play a crucial role in training, mentoring and maintaining discipline within their units. So there it is. That's that's what we do. If that's not culture, I don't know what it is. We are making sure that people understand what it is that they're trying to do. And we make sure that the tasks are effectively done. The biggest thing is that last sentence there, they play a crucial role in training. So, dude, I see this all the time. It's like these young, these young airmen are not the same as us. These young airmen are not the same as us. Dude, that's on you. That's the role of the NCOs. Mentoring and that's up and down the chain. You need to mentor your your junior officers. You need to mentor. Sometimes you need to mentor your senior NCOs and sometimes you need to mentor the airmen. Obviously, the folks that are below you on the chain of command is the main focus and probably the intent of this sentence. But one of the things that happens is when you attempt to mentor up. If you have a good senior NCO or you have a good officer, it's an it's a it's an opportunity to open up dialogue. It's an opportunity for you to educate yourself. So like, you don't necessarily go in there and like kicking them door and be like, hey, chief, what the fuck? Like, this is what we need to be doing. It's like, hey, chief, like I see what's happening. And I was in the meeting. And I know what you said, I have concerns, right? From from the team level, from the the staff sergeant tactical level. I have concerns about what you said. And you don't always have time for this. But like, if you never try to open up those lines of communication because your chief may not be tracking everything that you're tracking. And it's an opportunity for you to learn how your tactical level responsibilities tie into more like the the organization up into the operational level and start to mentor or or, you know, gain understanding for yourself of how these things work. It's like, you know, professional education that you can just get. It's just always there. And granted, you know, there's there's a lot of senior NCOs and and and officers out there that are, you know, not willing to have that dialogue or or don't fully understand it themselves. But there should be that that that's that's one of the things that happened to me a lot is I had access to people that outranked me by like a lot. And I, you know, you just be like, Hey, man, I don't think that's a good idea. Or I would do it this way. And sometimes I was right. You know, sometimes I was bringing information to them that they didn't have, which they were grateful for. And sometimes they'd be like, Hey, dude, I see what you're saying. And I would say the exact same thing in your position. And I think I have said that same thing when I was like an E5. But here's the things that you're not tracking that are not your responsibility. And I'm not within our like scope of of influence or Hispanic control. And here are the reasons why we can't get after that. So like, if you're going to if you're going to have this conversation, we might like to find either a more creative solution than what you're saying. Or we need to knock all of these dominoes down before we can actually do the thing that you want to do. Or, hey, hey, Trent, that thing that you want to do is stupid. And here's why. And it's like, Oh, like, actually, that makes sense. You know, but you have to be willing to receive that feedback back in return. So this is one of those things about your ego and being willing to accept criticism that that's going to be very important. All right. And then maintaining discipline within their units, maintaining discipline. Y'all. And I know I'm speaking to members. And so I expect y'all to take this message out and start influencing your your spaces. This is on us. OK. And discipline is is like the benchmark for everything, because I think trust is synonymous with discipline. And we've talked about this on the podcast a lot, like what makes us different? What makes special warfare special? And I think it's the high level of trust up and down the chain of command based on competence in our in our jobs, right, based on the they've seen what we can do and they trust that we're going to get the job done. And so you can give a much broader intent as a commander and know that your guys are going to do it. Or if there's a lack of intent, the guys are going to go out there and crush it no matter what, at least do their very best, even if it's not exactly what you had hoped that they would have done or or more information comes to light and it ends up not being the best thing in the world. There is that high level of trust there. So without discipline, you can't have trust. And so all of your issues about these young folks these days, all this other stuff, it all comes back to like that. This how can you trust someone if they don't do the little things right? And I know it's funny because like I saw on that that Facebook page the other day, the Air Force one. Someone brought up like, hey, we used to shine our boots. This is what it used to look like. And the number of people that hop on there is like having shiny boots and having your uniform look a certain way doesn't affect how well I can do my job. OK, but it definitely says something about you. And so I get both sides of it because like we always want to take like the the the the outside view, right? Like the extremes of both ends. Like, yes, when we shined our boots and we, you know, did stupid things with our uniforms and we, you know, put all that crap in them and made our creases with starch. We used to starch them. Like, is it kind of silly that we did that in Garrison? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then there are definitely people that like that was like their entire personality and their their way to make rank and to do certain things that had nothing to do with them being good at their job was to look a certain way. And this isn't this is this is just human the way humans work, though, two guys and organizations work and they would get ahead simply by, you know, being more squared away with their uniform, even though, you know, when it comes down to it like so like the the the squadron leadership would be like that dude, that's that's one of our guys. But then when it comes time to do his job, all the other airmen and NCOs like this dude's a piece of shit. He doesn't know anything. And so there's there's always that dichotomy. And then there's the dude every once while that just looks like a bag of shit in his uniform, but is like amazing at his job. But on average, if you want people to take you seriously, looking a certain way is important. Your first impression, how you do the little things. And I've talked about this many, many times. When I first started hanging out with combat controllers in Garrison, stateside, I was amazed at how the expectations of how they looked while they were on base, like the you're like, oh, these guys are cowboys. Like I already worked with these dudes down range before I had a lot of Garrison time with them. And it's like the long hair from the beards and, you know, a lot of cowboyish type behavior, like don't get me wrong, they were good at what they did. And then you go see him, Garrison and these dudes are all like clean shaven. Yeah, the hair is a little longer, but it's still technically in regs. And their uniforms were like amazing. Like they all wore those like those like modified jungle type boots. Their their boots were like mirrors. They looked good in their uniforms, like 99 percent of the time. And that spoke to them having discipline and giving a shit and caring about the image of their career field, right, of their community. They are there. The they are the visible end of that community. They're upholding that legacy. And so you can come at me all day long and say, like, it doesn't matter what you look like in your uniform, it doesn't make you better at your job. Maybe maybe it doesn't help you be better at your job. But it does affect the way that people see. People in your job and people in the Air Force and that fucking matters. And you can tell me all day that it doesn't matter and I'm not going to believe you. And it starts with that discipline because it's like seeing a fit person, right? Like if I see a fit person, I know that they have a certain level of discipline because they have to put in the work. There's no faking it. Like obviously, there's genetic differences, but you like to see a truly fit person, it's like they put in the work. You know, if I see a dude my age and he's not 40 pounds overweight, it's like, thank thank goodness. Like that's not that's not the easiest thing to do, especially some of these dudes that have desk jobs. So it says something about you and like you're represented above your family in the Air Force and all this other stuff, blah, blah, blah. All right, discipline is important. Fucking get after it. Let's go through the the non-commissioned officer creed. So to be fair, I never did any of this shit. I never said the creed. I don't know about the creed. Maybe I did. This might have been a thing in ALS where I wasn't paying attention. And to be fair, like or to tell you the story, I came I came off my first deployment and I think I had to test my CDCs for my seven level, like right away. Was that my first or second deployment? That might have been my second. I don't know. It was one of these deployments. It was it was the first deployment. And anyway, one of these deployments, I came home. It was my second deployment. My second deployment, I came home and I had to go straight to ALS and I had to test on my CDCs like right away. So like I'm home. I don't get my my commander's time off or whatever it is. And I go to ALS. So I was a little salty, right? Like I like people I knew had had died not that long before I showed up there. And I was tired. I was I was pretty tired. I knew I was PCS-ing to go stand up the the Saudi pipeline. I had to knock out my CDCs real quick. There was a bunch of shit that I had to do. And then I go to ALS and it was kind of a shit show. So maybe I just don't remember going through the the non-commissioned officer Creed, but I don't remember it. Let's start. Let's see what it says in the beginning of this thing. And hit me up and let me know if this is actually the NCO Creed for the Air Force. But it says that it's it's on Air Force Mentors dot com. So if you're looking for an Air Force Mentor, head over there, I guess, I don't know. Or head over to the Blins Ready podcast. All right. I think it's interesting how this starts. No one is more professional than I. And I think we can all agree that discipline and all the other shit starts with you. And this says that you are the professional. All right, I am a non-commissioned officer, a leader of people. I am proud of the non-commissioner officer corps and at all times conduct myself so as to bring credit upon it. I will not use my greater position to attain profit or safety. And so there's a lot to unpack there. But obviously, safety has nothing to do with your job. And that comes with like across all facets, like, oh, well, the boss might be upset if we do this or the boss might be like fucking be bold. Get out there, be unsafe, take some risk if it's the right thing to do. All right, competence is my watchword. First of all, who says watchword? That's crazy. But being good at your job, that's what I'm saying. Being good at your job. And that's not just your AFSC specific things. That's fucking being in the Air Force. So be good at your fucking job. I will strive to maintain tactical, maintain tactically and technically proficient. I will strive to maintain. Anyway, I will be tactically and technically proficient. I will always be aware of my role as a non-commissioned officer. I will familiar responsibility as a professional in all times, blah, blah, blah. I will strive to know my subordinates and use their skills to the maximum degree possible. Like, how do you do that? Like, you have to know them and B, you have to make sure that your folks are disciplined and competent enough to squeeze everything out of them. And that sounds that sounds bad, but that's that's the job. That's not it. And it's not a bad thing. Like when I first came into the Air Force, like I needed structure, I needed a boot up my ass to get me to the level of my potential that I met. Like that there were sometimes when there was like intrinsic motivation. There were times when, you know, like I was motivated and I turned that motivation into discipline. But man, sometimes I needed something to come in and be like, put their boot up my butt, force me to do things and a bettered me, right? And then a bettered the mission. We got more accomplished because I needed that direction. So I think that's interesting. I will always place their needs above my own. Yeah. And we'll communicate with my supervisors and my people and never leave them uninformed. All right, let's talk about that. Communicate with my supervisors and my people and we'll never leave them uninformed. The the just do it because I said so. Doesn't work very often unless unless something truly crazy is happening unless you really don't have time. It's not beyond you. It's not you are not above explaining the why to your people. And if you don't know the why, then get the fuck out there and figure it out. And you're going to supposed to communicate with your supervisors as well. You're not covering shit up. You're not telling them, uh, yeah, yeah, we'll go do that when you have concerns. Like they don't know everything. It's your job to be a communicator. So up and down the chain, you need to be communicating and not leaving people uninformed because that's where it breaks down. And I think there's a big fear sometimes in like, well, like this cannot be good for my career. And like my senior NCO isn't here right now. So like the major told me to do something. I don't think I'm I should push back. Yeah, you should. You should at least have a conversation. If they're not willing to have a conversation, find someone else to have a conversation. If there's no one else in your squad and they can have a conversation with and they ask you to do something stupid, find the gray area or slow roll it. Um, until it makes sense to do, to do. I will exert every effort and risk any ridicule to successfully accomplish my assigned duties. There it is. I might look stupid. I might rock the boat. I might, you know, like none of the other NCOs go and talk to the boss. None of the other NCOs do this. Like I don't know what I'm talking about. There's only one way to figure it out. Like getting the books and go talk to people. Like the idea that you're like, I'm a staff sergeant now, I'm a tech sergeant now, I'm a chief now, I'm supposed to know these things and I don't want to look stupid for not knowing them. You are stupid. If you're not figuring it out and chasing the knowledge, that's what makes you stupid. Like, and yeah, you're going to look dumb sometimes, but guess like you just got to put your ego aside because it's not about you anymore. If there's anything that this says, it's not about you. And I think a lot of this I'm talking to like the E sevens, E eights and nines, but like the level of ignorance that some of these people have, the level of fear that some of these people have, like they're so institutionalized that they won't push back, they won't just do what needs to be done. You don't always have to ask permission. And you had, you finally made it to the place, especially when you're a chief, you can't make E 10. Fix the fucking problem. That's your job. Don't ask for permission. Just do it. And if you don't know how to do it, get down there and talk to your E sixes. They fucking know how to do it. I guarantee it. You pull five E sixes into your office and be like, guys, I'm going to level with you. Um, I'm not sure what's going on and I don't know how to fix it. They will tell you. And it's not, it's probably not going to be pretty. And they might say not nice things about you and you might look like a little bit of an idiot, but if things get fixed and you, you take some advice and you, you channel it through your experience that you're supposed to have and you actually make things better. No one gives a shit. They're going to be happy because things are better. So yeah, you look stupid for a second. Like who gives a fuck? It's stupid. I'm getting real rent. You know, I'm starting to think about chiefs that won't step outside of their their office and getting pretty upset. All right. To do, to do. All right. Ridicule accomplished my assigned duties. I will not look at a person that's seen your race. So a lot of this is like whatever race, prejudice, all the other stuff. All right. I will carry out orders to the best of my abilities and we'll always obey the decisions of my superiors. Yeah, kind of kind of. There's, there's some wiggle room there. All right. And what is your superiors? You know what I mean? Is that a competency based thing? Is that a rank based thing? If they say go do, there is a go do, but they're still, they're still wiggle room in the how, you know what I mean? I've not been taking enough caffeine breaks, obviously. Man, let's sneezeies come out in the morning. You guys know what I mean? Hmm. Okay. I will give all officers my maximum support to ensure mission accomplishment. What does that mean? Giving them their support is not blind followership. Followership is not just saying yes to everything. All right. Giving your officer support means sometimes educating them. Sometimes it's having those conversations. Sometimes it's telling them that this idea that they've had, they have, that's like brand new in their mind, which is cool. Like they're supposed to think up and out and come up with good ideas or whatever. They went to fucking college or whatever. Sometimes when they come up with that, that brilliant idea to your job to be like, no, sir, we tried that before and it didn't work. And here's X, Y and Z. And maybe if we try it a different way, we might have different results, but like you're just going to waste time, resources and burn your people out if you do that. So to me, supporting my officers is also like protecting them from making stupid decisions, from, from making decisions without all the facts, making decisions without all the experience. And the NCO core has that experience. So you need to leverage that and you need to support them. Like there, there's a time also, right? Like if you have certain officer types that like you just, you got to let them burn it down a little bit and, and some people need to only learn through watching things burn down. But for the most part, you should be able to talk some sense into these folks. All right, I will earn their respect, obey their orders and establish a high degree of integrity with them. I will exercise initiative in the absence of orders and we'll make decisive and accurate decisions. There it is. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're going to obey legal orders. Like that's, that's the job too. But man, you don't have to ask their permission for everything. You don't like you're, especially if you're a senior NCO, man, just get after it, update them when they need it. What's the worst that's going to happen? You're going to yell that like take some fucking risk guys. Stop asking for orders over and over and over again. I know I'm not talking to everybody. I'm just saying culturally, I want to get to a place where us, the NCOs are display a little more initiative, a little more ownership over what it is that we're supposed to do that we own the culture a little bit more. All right. That's the last one. I will not compromise my integrity nor my moral courage. I will not forget that I'm a professional. I am a leader. I am a non-commissioned officer. Here's the thing that I disagree with in that the leader part. Like what the fuck does that mean? What is a leader? And I know this is one of my bugger booze, but like sometimes if you're a good manager, like that's what a lot of these units need is management. You can take these leadership courses. You can learn how to give speeches. You can do all this other crap, but sometimes chiefs, you just need to get in there and you need to fix the manning documents. You need to learn how orders work. All this other stuff that you don't learn in your PME courses, which you, that's definitely what they should be about. You need to get in there and you need to take care of your people through the paperwork. So there it is. There's my, my little rant about non-commissioned officers. All y'all out there. If you know some NCOs, if you know some chiefs, if you know some people that have influence out there, like we need to start talking about this more. All right. This is the official unofficial podcast for the United States Air Force. And I'm saying it is time. Here's the charge. It is time for the NCO core to claim their influence again. You need to get out there. Be good at your job. Be professional. Look the way you should. Stop asking permission for everything and be willing to get chewed out every once in a while. Take some risk. Take some initiative. Fix the airmen when you see them. It is your job to instill the discipline. It is your job to make sure that they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. People don't say stay trained forever. It's not a one and done type of thing. It's a lot like being a parent. And sometimes you have to reset either an individual person's memory and attitude or a collective. Memory or attitude. I'll end it with a story about that real quick. And I've told this before in the prep course. The the airmen get there at a BMT and we go hard for the first week. Right. Like we would establish our norms, establish our expectations. And then the trainees would stay trained and mostly within bounds as a group for about four to five weeks. You know, all that stuff starts wearing off though a little bit. Everything becomes normalized. They have a schedule. They go to the pool. They go to the track. They rock. They run. They do all these other things. They sit in the classroom when they start to lose that initial discipline that was reinforced again when they got off the bus and they showed up there. And so as the the operations superintendent, I would wait week five ish. And I just wait for the text to start rolling in. I'll just be sitting in my office or wherever I was. I didn't spend a lot of time in my office. It was like, hey, like into week four, like someone forgot their water bottle. It's like, cool. All right. Take care of it. Week five, like I'd start to get more and more texts. And so usually Wednesday or Thursday of week five, I'd put out the group text and we're like, Hey, after lunch, I need all the trainees to meet me out in the field. And that's when I would start log rolling them. So that's when I go out. I have a list of things that they've f'd up as a group and I would reset the cone collective memory and culture on week five because it required it. And my guys all have jobs. They don't have time to like they they cover down on like a lot of the little individual things, but when as a group, they start to lose it, you have to you have to be paying attention, you know, like if you're the E seven, you got to be paying attention. And it means something when they see me day one and they don't really see me all that much. The trainees don't see me all that much until week five. Like I'm around, but like I haven't dropped them. Like I like to go in like I'm day one and play like the drop game with them and a few other things that set my expectations. And then the E seven shows up on week five out in the field, log roll them, yell at them, explain why we're doing what we're doing, why it all matters again and reset the cone collective memory. And that's what it takes. It might take a monthly intervention. It might take a weekly intervention. Sometimes you can tell someone one thing, right? Like just like your kids and they're good for like a year. But sometimes you got to get in there and be active and take initiative. And you have consistent consistency, like maintaining that discipline. You have to have discipline in maintaining the discipline because it's not a one and done guys. You got to stay on top of it. And so like as an in CEO, as a senior in CEO, this isn't something that we just fix once. This is part of what we do on a daily basis. And that's what it's going to take to reclaim the culture and to get us back to where we need to be. So I appreciate all listening to my little rent. Make sure you're sharing with people that you, you know, a little bit of advice. Let me know what I missed when it comes to being an in CEO. Give me your perspective. I love getting feedback. I want to learn from y'all's experience as well. So hit me up and tell me where I'm wrong about all this stuff and what I missed. And maybe some of the important things that, you know, I'm a victim of my experience just as much as anybody else. And I think I know things. I'd love to hear y'all's feedback. So get out there, train hard, and we'll catch you all next time. Later.