Readiness for Anything: Leadership in the Trenches
February 25, 2026
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Dr. Patrick Donley, USAF (Ret.):
Good morning, Guardians and Airmen. Guardians and Airmen, we’re so happy that you could join us. Looks like we got a full room, and it’s the morning first session on the last day. So, that fact alone tells me that this is a panel that you were really looking forward to. And I got to tell you, as the director of the Doolittle Leadership Center at AFA, this is the panel I most wanted to be a part of, because we’re going to be talking about leadership in the trenches. And in my job, I get to travel around the world. I get to go to Deltas, and bases, and talk to all sorts of groups of people who are down there in the trenches and hear directly from them. And so, I’m excited to be able to talk with these amazing leaders about their perspective on leadership in the trenches.
So to my left, Chief Master Sergeant Israel Nuñez, Command Chief of the Air Force Reserves. To his left-
To his left, Chief Master Sergeant Josh Moore, Command Chief of Air National Guard. To his left is Chief Master Sergeant Karmann-Monique Pogue, the SEL for Space Training and Readiness Command. And rounding out the panel is the Command Chief for Pacific Air Forces, Chief Master Sergeant Katie McCool.
So my job is just to try to keep us on track and to say as little as possible, to let them say as much as possible. So we’re going to jump right into the questions, and I’m going to start with Chief Pogue. Chief Pogue, STARCOM is building readiness for a service that’s still maturing while threats and technology evolve fast. From your seat as the senior enlisted leader, what are the non-negotiables you’re driving so guardians stay ready for anything? And here’s the key, without burning out.
Chief Master Sgt. Karmann-Monique Pogue:
It’s no challenge for what we’re doing right now for our Space Force, Dr. Donley. I think the first part that STARCOM’s responsibility, I’m going to give three things and then kind of delve into it a little bit deeper. This first, lead with presence. It’s all right. I need our NCOs, our specialists, our chiefs, our operational leaders to lead with presence, because that helps drive where we’re going forward. Second is to lead with standards and those priorities. You have to know where you’re taking the team, and communicate that fairly clearly to hold our teammates accountable. Thirdly, we lead with development. We have to do that every single day because the environment, the operating environment, is changing every day. And with the Space Force is changing and what we’re up against right now, it’s challenging, and it moves pretty quickly.
And lastly, it’s setting the tone. It’s setting the culture, which STARCOM ultimately sets the tone for our guardians moving forward in every accession source, every commissioning source, and as we’re bringing our civilian teammates onto this team. It just boils it down to those three non-negotiables, right? Clarity in an environment where there’s constant change. And people, we don’t want people to lose focus on what we’re doing. We want to ensure that they’re willing to join us on this journey moving forward. And I think that’s important, from the youngest specialists to General Saltzman, what we’re communicating back.
And competence. Competence is a staple. It is the foundation. It’s the bedrock to what we do as guardians. It’s captured in our roles and responsibilities for our enlisted in our officer corps, on our enlisted force being the primary war fighters, being the technical experts at what we do. And so, driving that competence from day one as they enter BMT to the completion of their initial skills training, to literally launching them off into combat forces command, to those weapon systems that they’re going to be providing. Those space-superiority capabilities, too. And the culture. It’s been an incredible journey to be a part of the Space Force for the last six years, to establish the culture of what it means to be a guardian, what it means to be a space-minded war fighter, what it means to be a team player and critical thinker. That, I think, are the non-negotiables from where I get to advise my boss, Major General Smith, on the roles and responsibilities that STARCOM has, to set that for the service. It’s an incredible…
It’s a challenge. It’s not light work, but we have set those foundations to have our guardians really own that, and we’re just inculcating that throughout our service. And I really hope that our teammates in here recognize that as they have their guardians embedded within their formations. I know Katie does every day at PACAF. And in fact, she had those connection points with a few of our guardians that were in her operating environment as well, too. So, that partnership we have is critical to both teams winning no matter what we’re up against.
Dr. Patrick Donley, USAF (Ret.):
Do you mind if I ask you a follow-up question on that?
Chief Master Sgt. Karmann-Monique Pogue:
Of course.
Dr. Patrick Donley, USAF (Ret.):
So, the first thing that you mentioned was presence. At every echelon, presence with the guardians who were actually out there doing the work, I find that’s one of the things that’s most critical, and it’s almost a sense of intrusive leadership. How do I make sure that there are people at every echelon who are actually doing what I think they’re doing, with regards to the people that they supervise? How do we make that more of an intentional thing that every supervisor sees as, “This is a must do”?
Chief Master Sgt. Karmann-Monique Pogue:
I think that falls very clearly to our Space Force value of connection. It goes back into connected to your team. Knowing the teammates, your guardians, that have been trained in operating on those weapon systems. Being… I love that word that you use. I love being an intrusive leader, and intrusive in the best way possible. To understand the challenges our guardians are facing at home, the challenges they may be facing in the technology and the training, and understanding the capabilities that are getting delivered to them and how they integrate that into the joint fight. Understanding and being connected to those guardians that need help.
We did that with one of our Polaris winner. Sergeant Campos was recognized for that, for taking care of a guardian that was in distressed and staying by their side. And while he wasn’t that member’s direct supervisor, he was connected to ensuring that teammate was taken care of. He was an intrusive leader to a teammate that really needed them. And I think if we have our most youngest guardians, from our specialists to our sergeants recognizing that and how they own that, and taking care of people, it’s easy for our NCOs and our world-class master sergeants and our seniors and chiefs to continue to perpetuate that culture, that mindset, and that non-negotiable that we need moving forward in the Space Force.
Dr. Patrick Donley, USAF (Ret.):
Great. Thank you so much. Chief Nuñez, the conflict in Ukraine has reinforced for us a critical lesson. The decisive edge in modern combat comes from empowered NCOs leading in the trenches. How is the Air Force Reserve forging its NCO corps to be that decisive edge in modern combat?
Chief Master Sgt. Israel Nunez:
Yeah, it’s a great question. When I thought about this panel leadership in the trenches, I automatically went to the non-commission officer corps. It’s funny, as we sit in these seats, you tend to watch things and read things that you normally wouldn’t read or watch when you were younger. And I was watching C-SPAN of all things. That’s kind of boring. It was about three years ago when the three-star of DIA at the time was being grilled by Senator Tom Cotton. And the question was, “Hey, what’s been your biggest takeaway in the conflict in Ukraine?” And he could have said drones, he could have said just advanced weapon systems, and he said non-commissioned officers. He says, “Russia doesn’t have them and Ukraine doesn’t.” And he says, “Ukraine has it about right when it relates to the non-commissioned officers.” So if you look at some data, early data…
And it’s hard to get some of the data on casualty rates because Russia doesn’t share them, and Ukraine maybe embellishes them. But BBC did a study, and about 10 general officers have been killed in a conflict in Ukraine. Over 500 senior commanders have been killed in the conflict in Ukraine. What that tells me is that officers, senior commanders and general officers have to go to their front lines and push their troops to get after mission readiness, or get after operations. That’s not the case with us. So in 2014, the Ukraine, they learned that lesson. They got their ass kicked. They lost Crimea. And they said, “We got to do something different. This top-down Soviet-era structure command and control just simply is not going to work.” And they work really hard. They work hard with the state partnership program with Josh and his team to develop their NCOs. They started sending their NCOs to our NCO academies.
Fast-forward 2022 or ’21, when the conflict started, it’s four-year anniversary about to happen in conflict in Ukraine, little small military against a mighty Russian force. And the primary reason is because they have decentralized command control, and they have NCOs on the front lines who don’t necessarily need to have officers on the front lines guiding them. And so, I think we’ve learned that lesson. I’ll tell you, the Chinese have learned that lesson. Really good article on Defense One. It’s titled “NCOs: Russia needs them, China wants them, US has them.” And so, I think what we need to do is continue to devolve and adapt our NCO. In the reserve corps, we’re doing that right now. We’re making sure… For example, we have a course called Leadership Today and Tomorrow. Historically, we’ve never put enlisted in that course. It’s always been senior-level officers. We’re now putting enlisted in that course to make sure that our officers are enlisted or have synergy.
So that way, when they’re on the battlefield, they know how to talk to each other, they know what their left and right limits are. And that they build that mutual trust to make sure that that NCO is empowered, and that person knows and understands commander’s intent. And another thing that we’re doing is with partnering with our partner nations, and Katie knows this very well. We’re not going to go to war alone. We’re going to need our partner nations. And so for example, we started our Reserve and Allies and Partners Program. And in April, we’re sending our team of Reserve AGR A Tango instructors out to the Philippines to train 120 NCOs.
Again, we want to make sure that we can operate in decentralized command and control. Our NCOs understand mission command, but also that our mission partners as well understand that. So that way, we can fight together and get to victory. Because I think the decisive edge in tomorrow’s conflict, it’s not going to be exquisite platforms. It’s going to be exquisite airmen.
Dr. Patrick Donley, USAF (Ret.):
That’s a great answer. And as a guy who, his whole career was based on the capability of amazing NCOs, I can tell you that what you said rings true with me in terms of NCOs being that decisive edge. And I think, to a large degree, the US military has recognized that for some time.
But you mentioned mission command. And as we think about future conflict, it seems like even the role of the NCO is having to evolve to a degree, to do more with less oversight than even ever before. Would you agree with that? And how are you working to make sure that it’s not just business as usual, it’s NCO value with a bonus?
Chief Master Sgt. Israel Nunez:
I’ll give you a good example. We’re seeing that if… You remember the NEO? The evacuation in Afghanistan? Look, I’m… Any port dogs in the room, right? One.
But I tell you, that’s a really good example. As a port dog, I know that in a C-17, you can only put 56 passengers on an aircraft normal configuration. That’s what the Dash 9 says. NEO in Afghanistan, loadmaster tech sergeant, and a aircraft commander, junior captain, maybe a major, landed that first C-17. They could have said, “Hey, we can only take 56 people.” They didn’t. That tech sergeant loadmaster operating under mission command, understanding decentralized command and control, “I have to make the mission may happen. I can’t call TACC to make a decision. I’m going to have to put 400, 500 people on the aircraft and take that risk.” Oh, by the way, one of those loadmasters was the 315th Air Wing loadmaster from the Reserve, who not only made that call, but also delivered a baby on the plane.
And so, that’s mission command and that’s NCO dom in a nutshell. It’s understanding what the mission is about, understanding what the objective is and understanding what it takes, and being able to take risk left and right. And so, I think we need to continue to empower and trust our NCOs, give them that psychological safety that they need to be able to make those calls on the ground.
Dr. Patrick Donley, USAF (Ret.):
That last point you made is so good: giving them that safety net to be able to do the thing that they know they need to do without worrying about what might be the impact of having taken that risk. Yeah, really good.
Chief McCool, over to you. Given your three decades of experience, could you discuss the evolution of leadership strategies within the Air Force, and assess the resulting impact on the development and morale of airmen?
Chief Master Sgt. Kathleen McCool:
Yes, sir. That’s hard to hear, 30 years of service in the Air Force, but I want to expand that a little bit. So my grandpa served in the 1950s, my dad served in the ’70s, my husband and I came in about the ’90s, and now I have three children serving in the Air Force. And my grand-
Thank you. So my grandpa’s advice to me when I left was, “They don’t pay you to think,” and, “Make sure you always have cigarettes because it’s cold and lonely wherever you are.” Then you get to my dad, and he knew his responsibilities at Davis-Monthan were to secure the perimeter and ensure no intruder came into that gate and got to the aircraft, but that’s probably the extent of what he knew. And then as I came into the Air Force in the ’90s and my time as a military training instructor, it was basically, “Do what I say because I said so, and don’t ask questions.” And now, here we are. A couple of months ago, I was in the theater. And my youngest son, who’s an F-35 maintainer, called me and he said, “Mom, where are you?” And I told him. And he named a specific country, he named the leader of that country, and he asked if I was going to see him. I said, “Probably not,” because that’s not who I’m going to see.
And he said, “If you do see him, tell him I got something for him.”
And I said, “What’s that?”
He said, “Lightning.” So if you think about the difference that my child now knows, what the threat is, who is after us, what those dangers are, and how his specific platform can take it to the enemy, that is a ginormous change from the 1950s where all my grandpa thought about was they don’t pay you to think. And so out in the Pacific Air Forces, we are working very hard. It goes back to mission command that Iz was talking about. Our airmen, in some locations and at some times, you may have a captain and a seasoned tech sergeant or a master sergeant, and we are expecting them to be able to continue to generate air power as long as they can. And there are times when they may not even have access to the ATO, because command and control is difficult over a hundred million square miles.
So, let me put that into context for you. The United States is roughly 3 million square miles, and our theater is 100 million square miles. So, there are times that command and control is very difficult. And our airmen has to have a very clear understanding of what the commander’s intent is, what they are supposed to execute, and that they can continue to get after the mission even if comms are lost. That is a significant change to the way we train our airmen. And then I’ll just give a nod to Second Air Force and basic military training because they understand this. And if you were in the BMT next, they’re really demonstrating how our airmen need to have, from the very beginning, a tie to, “I’m an airman.” And for a long time, airmen would tell me, “I’m just a finance. I’m just a…” And I would say, “No, you’re not just.” Well, I’ve changed that now, “You’re just an airman.” That’s the most important thing, and we need to keep our focus on that.
Dr. Patrick Donley, USAF (Ret.):
Thanks, Chief. There’s so many strings I’d like to pull on there, but the one question that rises to the front of my mind is, do you have a pack of cigarettes on you?
Chief Master Sgt. Kathleen McCool:
No. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I didn’t smoke.
Dr. Patrick Donley, USAF (Ret.):
All right, let’s keep moving then to Chief Moore. Chief, the Air National Guard plays a unique role in the total force. What are some of the leadership advantages and challenges that come with that role? And I’ll just say it a slightly different way, too. From a leadership perspective, what advantages and disadvantages result from life as a guardsman versus an active duty airman?
Chief Master Sgt. Joshua D. Moore:
I know that there is a lot of challenges that come with leading a part-time force. Depending on the makeup of your particular wing or situation, 70% of that organization to 80% is a part-timer. So, that means you have 20 to 30% sitting there day-to-day, trying to make sure that that wing is ready to accomplish its mission. And you have to do it in different ways and think about it in different cycles. For our full-timers, our folks at regular Air Force and Space Force who do this all the time, they get to eat, live, breathe. Everything they do every day is part of that. Our reserve component is doing that differently. They’re doing it while they’re also eat, living, and breathing: their full-time jobs, their school obligations, their family obligations, their community obligations. Which, usually means they have to leave that every now and then, leave a breadwinning job or a family situation that maybe don’t understand what they’ve signed up for, to come in and do something because they want to. Because they’re committed to it.
And I think as we look at that force, we got to understand, and one of the things I love to talk about when I’m talking to our National Guard airmen is think about your wingmen. How do you empower your wingmen properly? And as we look at that traditional force, they come with a secret sauce. They come with a thinking process, a skillset that doesn’t grow organically inside of our military. It comes in through us through entrepreneurship, working in colleges and universities, working in police departments, being community leaders inside their small towns, and where they spend their time, school teachers, doctors. I run into young enlisted every now and then, somebody that might be like a lawyer. Full-time, high-pressure job during the week. And they love to just show up, put this uniform on, and just be a part of something bigger than themselves.
But they have these great ideas. They have these things they bring to us that… When we’re in garrison and we’re just trying to run through a drill weekend or get through a training, we tell them, “We tamp it down.”
“No, that’s not the way we do it in the Air Force. You need to do it our way.” And a lot of times, they’re standing up there screaming, going, “But we know a better way. Industry has already proven that this is the right way to go.” And we tend to be slow to that change. And one thing I like to remind our folks of, use that. Lean into that. Let them know that what they have and what they’re capable of doing with us can empower us and make us better. And we show it in other ways. We lean into it quickly. If we get put on state active duty orders and we know somebody has certain skillsets to get that part done, we’ll let them lead. We’ll let them take. When we deploy and we go places, usually you can tell by the way a guard shows up, guard unit shows up, and they start doing stuff, you can see the people with different skillsets. They start setting things up a little differently. They make their living conditions a little different.
It’s the way that the ownership they take in it, because for them, that’s their life. That’s their community. That’s what they’re doing all of the time, so they’re always looking to give it that community spirit. One of the things we have in the guard… I don’t know if the reserves talks like this, but the guard, we say, “We’re a lot like a family.” That’s the good thing about the guard. The bad thing about the guard is we’re a lot like a family. So, as these leaders, and they’re leading their folks and they’re coming up, it’s really hard to be a peer with somebody, and then just a few, short layers later, leading those folks and asking them to do hard things. When you were sitting with them just a couple of years ago saying the things we say in those seats and trying to get credibility and go, “Hey, I need you to let me lead you.” That hones a leadership element that is… It’s a little tougher to grab ahold of, a little tougher to lean into, but it does work great when it works.
Dr. Patrick Donley, USAF (Ret.):
I think that’s a really interesting point. And I think sometimes, it’s highlighted, I think, in your area specifically. But I think all of us struggle to some degree with just, I see the people that I’m supervising as people who complete a function. They have a task, it’s what I rely for them on, and it’s part of the mission. And we forget to see them as an individual person who brings individual capabilities and skills, that maybe go beyond that individual task. And in your world, those tasks can be so varied, and those skills can be so varied. How do we leverage that? And the only way you leverage it is to know the person and to do it deliberately. So, I think it’s a really great message for everybody, I think.
Let’s keep going here. Chief Nuñez, back to you. Reserve citizen airmen are expected to be just as lethal as the active force with a 72 hours go-to-war requirement. What is the recipe that allows your component to deliver such a high-impact, ready force on a part-time basis?
Chief Master Sgt. Israel Nunez:
Look, it may sound like a Homer, because I’m a command chief for the reserve, but I’ve grown. I tell you, I started out in the active component in 2000, 2001. I remember a bunch of reservists were activated with us after 9/11. And there was many times where I said, “Freaking reserve.” It was tough. But things started changing and evolving, and we started using the reserve component a lot more, and they started getting those reps and sets to the point that they were just seamless. By the time 2005, 2006, the reserve was becoming lead element because they had that experience. They were always volunteering. They were always being mobilized and they’re being activated. And so here we are, fast-forward in 2025 or 2026, my boss and I were talking about this, and he set up this campaign called the Reserve Advantage. That’s our new brand and our new motto is the reserve advantage.
And so, what is the reserve advantage? In number one, we’re lethal in the reserve, and we’re lethal because we absorb a lot of active-duty talent. And so, what we try to be is, we try to be a catcher’s mitt, if you will. We want the active component members to stay within the active component. But if you’re separating, we don’t want that talent to go to waste. We want those five and seven-level… For me, eight years active duty, tech sergeant, seven-level, five deployments. I didn’t want that to go to waste, and I brought that to the reserve component. And when we talk about that lethality, for example, our 477 fighter group out at Elmendorf, the most experienced F-22 pilots in the world. Why? Because they served there on active duty, and then they crossed over across the street to the reserve, and they maintained that capability.
So, I think we’re lethal. We’re experienced. Importantly, we’re accessible. We have a 72-hour requirement. That’s our mandate to the mission. That means that tomorrow… And Josh kind of alluded to this. Tomorrow, if something pops off, within 72 hours, our reservists need to be on the front lines, not as a rear element but as a front element, side by side with our active duty counterparts. We saw this in XABs. We saw that… We’re going to see this in 27.1, with Homestead being lead wing. And so, I think that’s our reserve advantage. The secret sauce is that we try to absorb as much active component talent as we can, but most importantly, we’ve had airmen, to Josh’s point, who just bring an exquisite capability. It was funny, CMSAF’s in the room and he was asking for members to serve on his AI team, and we requested volunteers through the force, and we had so many to choose from. We had a guy who’s working AI at Google. We’re like, “Why can’t we just… We definitely have to throw this person.”
And there was another kid who was working a master’s in the AI, and I was like, “Well, we got to extend this person.” We were like, “Just send them all. They’re all great.” Anyway, I think that’s the secret sauce, is that we absorb that active duty talent. We are the reserve advantage. But most importantly, we have airmen who are just bringing exquisite capabilities from their civilian side, who that we can take advantage of in a sense of employing them maybe in a way that they normally wouldn’t be employed.
Dr. Patrick Donley, USAF (Ret.):
I came in ’91, at the tail end of Desert Storm. You mentioned the evolution of the guard and reserve forces. And I saw that. I mean, I remember when I came in, you could spot from about 400 meters away, like, “Oh, that’s a guardsman. That’s a reservist.” Because they just looked different. Their equipment was different. Their uniforms were different. You could spot them. Now, you don’t know the difference between one person and the next, which, I think, is a tremendous success story that’s come through a lot of work. I think if we had more time, the thing that I would want to ask you is because that capturing the capability off of the active duty as they transition, what are we doing to do that even better? What are we doing to even reach our arms around those groups and help them understand, “Don’t waste what you’ve invested. Keep investing”? Unfortunately, we’re running low on time, so I’m going to move on to the next question.
And that’s Chief McCool. Chief, the new national defense strategy directs us to deter China in the Indo-Pacific through strength, not confrontation. How are you and your leadership teams demonstrating peace through strength while ensuring readiness remains at an all-time high?
Chief Master Sgt. Kathleen McCool:
Yes, sir. Thank you for that question. It’s extremely important to Admiral Paparo, who is our combatant commander, that we are not antagonizing China. That we are not the ones causing the problems and being the bully, but we want them to know what we are capable of doing. And so exercises like REFORPAC that we did this summer, other things that we’re doing every single day in the theater, it is a reinforcement to China that we have the capabilities and we can do what we say when we say it. And I was recently out visiting airmen all across PACAF, and they asked a lot of questions about Midnight Hammer and Absolute Resolve. And their questions were, “Do you think that those missions are taking away from the focus in the Indo-Pacific?”
And I said, “You know, if I was the leader of China, and I woke up one morning and I saw the precision strike that our B-2s accomplished, and then I saw that they could get into a country and take someone’s out strategically, that would give me pause. That would let me know that the United States military is capable of a time and place of our choosing, executing what it is that we need to execute.” And so we are not antagonizing, but we are ready every single day through our exercises, the way we’re training our airmen, and the conversations we’re having with them.
Dr. Patrick Donley, USAF (Ret.):
Excellent. I love the answer. Keeping the pace, moving here a little bit. Chief Moore, how has the guards NCO corps evolved over the course of your career? In what ways does it need to keep evolving, and how can current NCOs be incorporated into that evolution?
Chief Master Sgt. Joshua D. Moore:
Sir, you mentioned it. I came in ’95, and I deployed, as a reg F airman… Because I did my four years in regular Air Force. And you could detect, you could see who the guard and reserve was. Whether that’s a fair assessment or not, but I think it’s pretty true. I think we all were, in back then, knew that. And then when I joined the guard in 2000, this was before 9/11, I saw I’m in a different type of place. Some things are different. Some things I liked, a lot of things I didn’t, but something happened to us, and 9/11 drove it. The way we were deploying and being counted on as part of the force that we presented as the United States, we had to bring our professionalism up. So, we struggled in trying to make sure…
Because we had a tactical competency that was solid. We knew exactly how to do things. Some of these folks have been doing stuff for 30 and 40 years. They knew their craft. There was just some other things that were missing, some leadership aspects, some professionalism, some operational competency I like to call it, that we started to grab ahold of. And as we took our job and the fact that we had to keep up and we… Tactical expertise isn’t everything in the military. There’s other things that come with that. So, we started to get after NCO development a little better. When I first came in, the way you did distance learning to make up for PME was substandard. We were given airmen and NCOs basic CDC courses where they had to print out PDFs and study for these tests that was not a leadership experience, wasn’t pouring into them correctly. So, the leadership of the Air National Guard at the time thought it was important.
And in concert with the reserves, let’s deliver that better. Let’s give them a better product. Let’s make sure if they have to do it by distance learning, which is a requirement a lot of our part-timers have to do, let’s make sure it’s quality, make sure it’s relevant. Let’s make sure we’re pouring it in them. And we keep getting better at that. We’re constantly looking at that stuff. Even to now, we’re always talking about how we can deliver this in a format that our airmen are getting what they need in a quality manner that they can utilize and be more professional NCOs. And we got to constantly improve it, because if you’re not looking to always improve it, you’re going to start going backwards. So, we figured that out. The new part of this, I think one of the things I’ve been really pushing hard, especially in my senior NCO corps and the Air National Guard, is we do need to have a better grasp of our operational competencies.
We have to understand the policy and the doctrines of the why. This goes back to what Katie was saying earlier. We have to explain some stuff to our folks, or they’re just not going to buy in. If we don’t know where it’s coming from, we can’t explain it. So that’s the next leg of this journey for us, is now we know they’re tactically sound. We know they know how to lead in the trenches. They know how to get things done. But when you get up to the senior NCO level, can then you start to make the tactical understandable through your strategic vision, through that operational competency? And we’re pouring into our senior NCOs. We’re changing the way we’re delivering some stuff. We’re just giving them the information, and they soak it up like sponges.
Dr. Patrick Donley, USAF (Ret.):
In so many ways, the senior NCOs become the translators that take the policy or the why, and then they figure out the right words to communicate to the individual airmen or the guardians that put it in a way that they can understand and actually do something with. I’ve seen the focus on the development aspect, the professional development aspect, personally in the Doolittle Leadership Center. We’ve got our first guard wing that has now hired us to come out and deliver our leader development workshops on a UTA weekend, and we’re super excited about being able to extend it out there. And it’s just proof that more and more people are thinking about, “What else is out there? How do we invest in our people further?” So, that’s exciting.
Okay. Chief Pogue, leadership in the trenches is often NCOs and frontline supervisors. What are you asking STARCOM’s NCO corp to do differently right now to build trust, accelerate learning, and produce mission-ready guardians?
Chief Master Sgt. Karmann-Monique Pogue:
I think it’s more than just STARCOM, Dr. Donley. I think it’s a call to our service, and it starts with the imperatives and the priorities that the chief master in the Space Force has been talking about with our enlisted corp. And how we at STARCOM continue to help set, and refine, and operationalize those priorities to ensure our guardians are ready. And that readiness is ultimately built on at the NCO level, at that supervisor level. As Josh talked about, being that translator. And understanding from our chiefs and seniors out there, how do we take the strategic knowledge, the priorities from our principles to communicate that effectively down through each echelon of leadership from the bottom up. Katie’s right: our airmen and guardians are asking deeper questions. They understand the threat. They know what we’re up against. It is not the same service that I came in 26 years ago.
It’s going back into how we’re investing, not only that communication piece, but those opportunities for our guardians moving forward. What ultimately we’re asking our NCO corps to do through our fellowships at the Vosler Academy is reinforcing at every level of leadership, that critical thinking mindset. How do I ensure that my team truly understands from mission command what I’m asking them to do? Whether that be on a weapon system, on the ops floor, from our military training instructors, taking our most… Those applicants, those citizens coming in, and turning them into guardians. And do those young guardians living that basic training experience, understand what they’re up against and what they’re going into? I think we have a little bit of grace in our size, that we can have those deliberate touch points with our guardians across our deltas and within our formations. That’s helpful that our NCO corps gets to lead with presence. We get that, that connectiveness that we have.
And it goes back to setting those standards and the priorities of what it means to be a member of the profession of arms, what it means. For those of us right here, all of us sitting in the room and on this panel, what it means to raise your right hand. And the ultimate indemnity clauses that come with that, and reinforcing that this is not a corporate organization. We are members of an elite team. And what that means when, as is talked about, what you could be called upon to do. Twenty-six and a half years ago when I came in, it was one of those things, “Hey, space operators never deploy.” Where did I find myself right after 9/11? In a deployable unit providing space effects to a combatant command. And so, it’s shaping those experiences we had throughout our career to helping prepare our teammates for the unknown.
We’re really great at knowing what’s out there. But as the CSO has challenged us in the Space Force, and especially through STARCOM, how are we preparing our NCOs to lead through the unknown challenges that we still have yet to face? I think that’s true for any service, for any member of the joint force right now. We don’t know what’s ahead of us. And so, just reinstilling that presence, that critical thinking mindset, and being that translator back to the teams, they’re going to be executing that tactical level work to win and fight wars.
Dr. Patrick Donley, USAF (Ret.):
Excellent. I completely agree. So, we’ve got four minutes left and I’ve got one more question. I’ll just open it up to anybody who wants to answer. And if somebody answers and you feel like, “Yeah, I pretty much agree with that,” we’ll call it there.
At this conference so far, I’ve heard many speakers talk about the need to move more quickly in an effort to stay in front of our adversaries. And I’ve seen those words translated into the trenches during my travels doing these leader development workshops around the globe. How do we ensure we’re simultaneously hitting the necessary speed of mission without compromising our responsibility to develop and care for the tactical executors in the field?
Chief Master Sgt. Kathleen McCool:
I’ll take an initial stab at that. I don’t think you can separate the two. And I had the honor of being the command chief at Whiteman. And the story I told all the time is it was two-a-days every day with no gain, which is good. It meant the B-2 was serving the effect of deterrence. But when Midnight Hammer happened, it was their Super Bowl. And all that work they had put in, all that tactical level, experience, education, gave them the moment that was their finest hour. And so I tell our airmen, “Our time is coming, and what we do every single day between now and that day is what’s going to prepare us for success.”
Chief Master Sgt. Israel Nunez:
If I can add, look, exquisite platforms need exquisite airmen at the end of the day. And so, you have to do both. And I talk to my boss all the time. I was like, “Hey, I think F-35s are important, but I think airmen are as important.” Readiness has a cost, and readiness has an expiration date, and readiness is also quality of life. And I tell you those two men in the front row, CMSAF, CMSIF, if you saw their testimony, they’re really focused and keyed on quality of life. We recruit airmen, we retain families. So, childcare needs to be resolved. Dormitories and barracks, that needs to be resolved. At the end of the day, airmen will make a choice to stay with us. And if they have to make a choice between family and service, I would not blame them for making that choice of family every single day.
And so, I think we need to make sure that airmen are at the forefront. Making sure that at the end of the day, we can have all these exquisite platforms. But if we have no one to operate them, then we lose our decisive advantage. And so, we need to make sure that we maintain quality of life for our airmen, so that way, they can come to the work centers 100%. 100% of the time.
Chief Master Sgt. Joshua D. Moore:
Go ahead.
Chief Master Sgt. Karmann-Monique Pogue:
I’m going to go with two quick statements, Dr. Donley. I think that’s a team-first culture. I think we have to recognize we can have the most exquisite capabilities, but if we don’t approach it with the teams that are operating those, as Iz talked about, we’re going to lose that. If we’re not focused back into the two name tags we were in our uniform, a family name and a family name, what does that mean for our services moving forward? I think we have to really take an approach while the exquisite is there, how do we look towards that people-centric focus to know that we are wholeheartedly invested in the people that are raising their right hand to be a part of these teams?
Chief Master Sgt. Joshua D. Moore:
And I’ll just say this, we all know this. Airmen will accomplish the mission. They will do it, and they will do it until the bitter end. They won’t stop. And we as leaders got to remember, all of these decisions we make, everything we push on them is on their backs, and they’re going to carry it until they can’t anymore. So, we have to respect that. We have to give them the best capability to be able to do it. We got to support them in every way we can, because they’ll get the mission done. I trust in our airmen. They’ll do it every time.
Dr. Patrick Donley, USAF (Ret.):
Great words to end. Hey, thanks so much to everybody for coming to this panel. Hopefully, you found it was helpful. This is the kind of panel we’d like to do in the future at AFA and our conferences. So if you like this idea, if you like this sort of a forum, please pass that feedback back up through so that we can keep doing this. And how about a round of applause for these amazing leaders?