Fireside Chat: Air Force BMT Next
February 24, 2026
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Maj. Gen. Wolfe Davidson:
Those are hype guys out there, I like it. Hey, well good morning everyone. All right, hey, we are excited to be with you here today. My name is Major General Wolfe Davidson. I’m the commander of 2nd Air Force. Been there about 19 months. And we’re here today to talk about what we think is the most transformational thing going on in our Air Force today. Let me start off by thanking AFA and the Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force and his office for allowing us to do this and setting this up where we get an opportunity to talk about the passion that’s going on in the 2nd Air Force, the 37th Training Wing, and down in the 737th Training Group, which is about the most significant transformation of basic military training since 1950. Think about that, since 1950. That’s when we made the transition from kind of an Army-based BMT into an Air Force-based BMT. That’s straight from the historian, the basic military training historian. So what we’re gonna talk about here today, we’re gonna talk in this kind of odd format of Chief and I having a conversation with you. We’re gonna try to give you an understanding of the why we’re doing the things we’re doing at basic military training, the what, and then kind of get down to the how a little bit and we’ll talk about the when it’s gonna occur. So that’s our pitch for you today. And I would tell you, this is not, and why do I think this is the most transformational thing going on in the Air Force? ‘Cause this is not just about training at basic military training. This is about changing the identity of an Airman. And at a rate of 42,000 Airmen a year. 1/3 of the Air Force in the next three years. Chief?
Chief Master Sgt. Colin A. Fleck:
Hey, good morning everybody. I’d also just like to say we’re grateful for the opportunity to get here and chat with you guys and explain what we’re trying to get after and hopefully increase some advocacy and some understanding of where we’re going with BMT next. And same, I’d like to thank AFA for the opportunity and the short notice add to let us in and to CMSAF and Chief Montgomery for working this and getting us in here. And so I’m Colin Fleck, the Command Chief, Second Air Force. I got the privilege of working with General Davidson and working for General Davidson and being part of this amazing opportunity and this transformation that we’re doing. And so I’ll kind of start off and kick it off with, every time we give this briefing, and we’ve given it quite a few times, the first question we always get is why, and then subsequently why now? And so facetiously, the gunner in me answers with why not? Great organizations have to adapt to stay great. And so we don’t rest on our laurels. We’re always looking at ways to do things better. The practical side of me, as the Command Chief here at Second Air Force says, well, why is because General Davidson’s my boss. And he brings a drive and a passion for what we’re getting after here. And so I just start in front of everybody, thanks for the leadership you’re providing here, because this is 100% squarely focused on the enlisted force and increasing their readiness and making us better and getting after lethality of the enlisted Airmen. So we couldn’t do this without incredible GEO level leadership from you and General Quinn. And so I’m just incredibly grateful for what you guys are throwing in here on our behalf. But in all seriousness, the real reason why is because our senior leaders are calling for it, to be more trained, to be more ready, to be more lethal. And so now’s the time. The strategic environment at the same time is necessitating it. We have to get ready for the challenges that we face in the future. And then last but not least, it’s because our Airmen deserve it. We heard from Secretary Meink and General Wilsbach yesterday on the challenges that we face as an Air Force. And so not surprising to this audience that the strategic environment has changed significantly. And so we have to evolve and adapt with it to meet the challenges that are there. And quite frankly, the list of challenges that we’re gonna ask our Airmen to face and overcome in the coming years is only growing longer, not shorter, than what we faced. Where they’re being asked to prepare, to fight and decisively win against a very capable adversary potentially. And in doing so, hopefully deterring that from ever taking place. All the while, continuing to meet the dynamic and emerging threats that we’re used to facing. Just like this year with Midnight Hammer and Operation Absolute Resolve showed that we’re gonna have to continue to answer. And so this idea that we’re preparing our Airmen for challenges that are different and potentially greater than the ones that we were faced with, drives a need to change. The other thing that I think everybody understands is that the capabilities of these potential adversaries are growing stronger, not weaker. And so if we don’t do everything we can do to maintain our advantage and to keep that competitive edge to ensure our superiority as an Air Force, that gap will continue shrinking. And so this is our look at, and I’m gonna quote some things from General Davidson here. Hopefully I don’t steal this under a little bit too much, but we have a duty as leaders to prepare our Airmen for the fights that they will face, not the fights that we faced. And as that future has changed and that environment is always evolving and adapting, this is our time to get after it. Why now? Because we have the luxury to. All great organizations have to adapt to stay ahead. And so right now there’s an opportunity, the environment is ripe to say, “Hey, we know where we’re going. “We know what we’re being called to do.” And so it’s not to say that what we’re doing today isn’t good enough, but another General Davidson quote, “What is good enough when it comes to a gunfight?” The surprise that none of you should have is that there is no second place medal in a gunfight. It’s just defeat. And so why now? Is because we’re gonna make sure that we maintain that advantage through our enlisted Airmen, which we know is our competitive advantage, our strategic advantage, and to build in them the ability to meet these challenges. And so as we look at these adversaries and the environment’s changing and the potential and the preparation to be able to decisively fight and win an all-out war against a very capable adversary. The Air Force has developed some operational concepts like agile combat employment, multi-capable Airmen, mission-ready Airmen, all these very necessary constructs. And so a lot of this is designed for us to build the enlisted Airmen that fill those roles and that can operate in those environments under those concepts, ’cause as we know, those concepts require Airmen that can execute in mission command, that can make decisions and act in an operational environment with an understanding of the broader mission so that they can fit in there, sometimes without potentially in a contested environment, without the exquisite C2 that we’ve come to know, while being able to identify risks, real risks, operational risks, risk to mission and true risk to force, and then be able to analyze that, develop mitigations, put those mitigations in place and accept it where acceptable at their level, and then get the mission done. And so all of that requires a mindset shift from the very beginning in our enlisted Airmen to prepare them for that burden and for those challenges. And so this mindset that there needs to be a deep understanding and a connection at the individual level as an Airman, that they are each individually, regardless of specialty, responsible for mission accomplishment. That we win and we lose as a team, and that’s at the flight level, through the squadron wing, as an Air Force and as a Joint Force, and that every Airman has a pivotal role to play in that and that they have to have deep ownership of that mission and not just their technical specialty. As well as a bias for mission accomplishment, that you can’t just rely on, hey, if there’s a problem with X, then we will have the luxury of having deep specialty expertise to handle that. When you look around, Agile Common Deployment says we’re gonna be operating in smaller teams, dispersed location, austere airfields and environments. Okay, well you may not have all the specialties you need, but the mission still has to get done. Airmen are problem solvers, they always have been. We’re just looking to capitalize on that and crystallize it right at the very, very beginning. And so this really is about a mindset and an identity and an ownership and a buy-in. And so that’s really what this is designed to get after. And so that kind of kicks us off into the, how are we gonna do this?
Maj. Gen. Wolfe Davidson:
Yeah, and just building on that concept, right? So if you think about, since the 2018 National Defense Strategies, we’ve had pretty consistent focus on an adversary. And in that, the Air Force has changed its operating concept and there’s lots of terms and they’ve deviated, but they’re all focused on the same thing. It was how do we generate air power from a contested environment? How do we generate in an area where we do not have the sanctuary that we’ve been used to over our careers? And how do we prepare Airmen for that fight? And if you think about that, we’ve thrown a lot of terms out, multi-capable Airmen, mission-ready Airmen, multifunctional Airmen, and even before that, there was this struggle with how do we address this identity challenge that we have with the Air Force? I happen to work for the leadership team under General Mosley. I wasn’t part of the team that created it, but when they created the Air Force Creed, why did they create the Air Force Creed? It was to create this identity of an Airman to tie ’em closer to the mission, right? Great step, but as our RAND partners have helped in some of the analysis for this, it’s very clear that slogans and mottos are somewhat effective, but how you actually develop is you socialize at the point of gaining belonging to internalize through shared experiences to a culture. Where is that for us? It’s at basic military training. That’s where we create Airmen. That’s where they get their sense of belonging with us, and that’s why our focus on developing an Airman that can be out there solving the problems regardless of their specialty to generate air power in a contested environment. So we call this, and it’s on the slide there, from the drill pad to the airfield, and I think by the end of this, you’ll understand what we mean by that. We don’t mean that we are not gonna do drill and ceremony at basic military training, but we are gonna transition Airmen’s experiences from a drill pad to an airfield over time, and we’ll walk you through some of the kinda key training apparatuses. The two other parts of the why that led us to this is that Rand did a study for my predecessor in 2024, and the results came in right about the time I took command, and they went and asked every first sergeant and every chief in every Air Force squadron, are we sending you Airmen that embody the warrior ethos? And 72% of them said no. All right, this is from our senior leaders at our squadrons, which is where our Airmen go. All right, the second part of that that I kinda mentioned is that the operating concept has changed, right, so if you talk about a combat air base squadron concept, or any of the ways that we’re getting after the unit of action to deploy a combat wing, they’re all built around the same concept. We need Airmen who can solve problems and generate air power for our Air Force to do it, ’cause why do we do this? Right, the Department of Air Force exists for one reason. We exist to deliver effects against the adversary. We do that through air, space, cyber, missiles, ground. Right, that is what our Air Force exists for. Okay, well where do all those five effects generate from? Air bases, space bases, or missile bases? So as we’re trying to understand how do we create this warrior ethos, right, that the force told us we need to create, well what is warrior ethos? It’s attachment to the mission and understanding of your role as a warfighter. It’s not what you do. It’s not whether you carry a gun or fly a jet or what specialty you have. It’s why you do it. Do you do it to defeat an adversary? Do you do it to help somebody else who’s gonna defeat an adversary? That’s the warrior mindset. So to create a warrior mindset, the first thing you have to do is attach, make sure the Airmen are attached to the mission. Right, and that’s what all of our leaders are out there trying to do, regardless of what their specialty is. Tie Airmen to the mission. And that’s what this is, tie Airmen to our Air Force mission. So as we get after this problem set, that’s what we are trying to solve. Well what’s the Air Force mission and how do we tie to it? Right, and what do we do? We’re in the Air Force. We defend, we operate, we generate, and we sustain air power. That’s what we do, right? So that’s the identity aspect of it that we took to Chief Master Sergeant Flosi and then Chief Master Sergeant Wolfe and said, hey, here’s the concept. This is the concept of how we create an Airman that is tied to the Air Force mission and can bring that warrior ethos to serve alongside the rest of what our chief talked about yesterday. And we’ll connect that a little bit more. So that’s the why, right? And to kind of get after this thing. So what? What did you change? How do you do this? So we came up with this term, air-minded warrior. Is it the right term? We don’t know, but it works. Right, and we’re happy for any new ones. But the reality is, it describes what it is that we do. And this is something, we ask this question a lot. There’s a, anybody heard the quote, every Marine a rifleman, right? How about every Sailor, a firefighter? Heard that one? Why, ’cause fire used to be the number one threat to ships. So, all right. Anyone ever doubt if you ask a Soldier who happens to be a cook to grab their ruck and helmet that they won’t go do soldiering? They’re a Soldier. If you ask any of them, what are you? They’ll say, I’m a Marine, I’m a Sailor, I’m a Soldier. All right, finish this sentence. Every Airman a…? We’re missing one, aren’t we? It’s not as clear as it is to our other services. Maybe that’s ’cause we haven’t created that identity for ourselves at the beginning. And here’s an opportunity to do that. So, this term, air-minded warrior, was the approach that we’re focused on to bring that warrior ethos and tie ’em to the Air Force mission. And we can jump to the next, oh, you already did. Here, jump to the next slide. So, this is how we describe it, right? And why is this important? What are we doing at basic training? This is what we do. So, that brain on the right is that America’s treasure that’s chosen to serve their country and serve something bigger than themselves, and we have to install in them. The first thing we have to install in ’em is the core values. We gotta bring ’em to our set of values. Our BMT has always been really good at that, and we’ll continue to see that as the baseline of what we have to do. The next thing is, we gotta make ’em a military professional. They have to understand that they are a combatant for their nation to defend our country. And there should be no difference between a military professional of any of the services. We all do this together. We are all military service members. We all have the same level of responsibilities. We’ve gotta create that in these civilians as they join our Air Force to do that. So, you can see that’s focused on the ability to be a warfighter. That’s where your warrior ethos is involved. Being a warrior ethos doesn’t make you an Airman. Every service says they wanna have a warrior ethos. But it starts with being a military service member. But then we gotta make ’em Airmen, and that’s where this air-minded aspect of it comes. This is the new part that we’re gonna spend the rest of the time at BMT really focused on. This is the part of BMT that we haven’t done. If you’re at Marine Corps or Army basic training, and this is a question that Chief Montgomery and I asked when I first got in. What is the basic military training of Air Force basic military training? What are we training you on? Sock folding, shirt folding, drill and ceremonies? Those are ways. Those are ways to develop discipline, accountability, standards. Chief talked about it yesterday. How do we establish accountability and standards? We establish a standard, we train ’em to it, and then we hold ’em accountable to execute that. All necessary steps. In the other services, though, they transition those ways into their ends. Soldiering, being a Marine, infantry tactics, and the sailors, it’s about shipboard operations, putting out fires and leaks. Where’s ours? It’s missing. We’ve lost it out there. And what happened is, at BMT, our drill and ceremonies became our ends instead of our ways. We’ve gotta define what that BMT is. What is that basic military training? And that’s what we’ll talk about here. So this is the mindset of an Airman, and we’ve defined this as a deep understanding of the Air Force mission. That’s what we should impart on you when you join our Air Force. Understanding of our mission, and for you to accept and understand your role in defending, operating, generating, and sustaining air power. We call it DOGS, easy to remember, right? Defend, operate, generate, sustain air power. If we teach you that, maybe you’ll be tied to our mission before we send you off to technical training and get your specialty skills. No change of that. Chief talks about it all the time. We need our technical expertise. We still need that out there. We’re not diminishing that. What we’re doing is growing the basis by which that technical expertise ties to the broader Air Force mission. So that when we need Airmen on a base doing multifunctional or multi-capable things, they have a basis by which they execute from, right? So that’s the concept of how we would, how we will make an Airman at basic military training going forward. Chief, any comments on this?
Chief Master Sgt. Colin A. Fleck:
Absolutely. So to take all that that General Davidson just talked about, we want to flip the paradigm. And I’m gonna quote him again. But the idea here is to change the subject from deep technical experts who happen to be in the Air Force to air-minded warriors with exquisite specialty skills. And to flip that paradigm, like he talked about, recruit living area inspections, making beds, hospital corners, folding socks and shirts to exacting dimensions, the drill and ceremonies. Those are all, they are ways. They are ways that we instill attention to detail, discipline, teamwork. To be applied to what? And that’s what the boss has been talking about, mission, or what’s been missing. And so as we look at how we use those as ways, to and ends, the idea of BMT Next is, okay, well then let’s allow them to take those competences that we instilled in them, the teamwork and the discipline, the standards, accountability, the attention to detail, and then apply it to the Air Force mission so that they get inculcated into what that mission is, whatever their specialty is gonna be. They started with the foundation of understanding what that Air Force mission is. And so to do that, we wanna put it in context. And so the first step of this is to build an interim air base right there on Lackland in the BMT complex. And I think the next slide will kinda show us what that looks like.
Maj. Gen. Wolfe Davidson:
Yeah, and that was our tactical problem, right? Which is, why don’t we do this? Well, because we don’t have an airfield to train on. Where’s our training range? We need more than woods, like the Army and the Marine Corps do. Navy has a huge Disney-designed ship where they do this, a simulator ship. And that kinda inspired us to go, hey, can we do that? So we said, let’s build an airfield on basic military training. So we started designing and getting after that. And then we ran into this other challenge. Hey, you need resources, right? So–
Chief Master Sgt. Colin A. Fleck:
Turns out it’s not free.
Maj. Gen. Wolfe Davidson:
In the last chart, we’re gonna show you what we have planned. But guess what? That takes too long to get there. Go back to the chief’s point on why now? Why not, right? Every Tuesday, about 864 Airmen show up. And every Thursday, about 864 Airmen graduate basic military training. And every week we miss is another opportunity. 50 weeks a year. Every week that we miss is another missed opportunity at the rate of 42,000 a year. So I wasn’t willing to wait seven years to build a huge construction. So I asked the team, great team. Great team there in the 37th Training Wing, 737th 502nd Air Base Wing. And we got some awesome contractors from our industry partners that came in. And I said, hey, let’s figure out how we can do this fast. And this is what they came up with, right? We dropped our first dime at this in September. I’m sorry, in September for end of year funding. We invested, between us and AETC, we invested $29 million in FY25. And that air base is gonna be real in September. That F-16 arrives in April, right? Those C-130s are gonna be the last thing to get there. We’re in the process of getting that. But this is our temporary solution. How do we make this happen? I’m gonna talk to you, we have a two-range solution. That is walking distance from the dorms. That sits on where a drill pad used to be, right? From the drill pad to the airfield. So as Airmen gain their competencies as a small team, another change to BMT, operating in small teams, 20 or under, once they learn their skills, this is where they’re gonna apply ’em. This is where we’re gonna focus on their attention to detail and their standards and accountability. This is where the MTI is gonna train their Airmen on all of those team sets, the problem solving, the working through, the interpersonal challenges and relationships by different team leaders that are being put into these environments. You can see on the right side, those are the five training scenarios that come in those cargo containers. This is a temporary solution. But it will provide the first round of being able to make this transformation. And I’ll tell ya, probably as shocking, it’s not shocking to you as you see this, but Airmen join the Air Force because they like to do stuff like this. Right? And they are excited. So as interim to getting there, so right now they’ve started taking the BMT trainees, they’ve gone over, we have a hangar of aircraft over in our IAFA, and it’s amazing how they just light up. It changes ’em, right? It changes ’em to see this is why I joined the Air Force, to be part of air power, right? To use air power to crush the enemy and win our nation’s wars. And it is exciting. And Airmen are excited about it. The MTIs are excited about it. Little anxious, right? ‘Cause guess what? How many of you feel comfortable right now, go, all right, here’s what you’re going to train your Airmen on today. All right, you’re gonna train ’em on loading those rockets or loading those missiles on the F-16, you’re gonna trow them on fuel on that aircraft, you’re gonna train ’em on repairing that runway, you’re gonna train ’em on that air-based defense scenario, you’re gonna train ’em on marshaling aircraft. And who’s comfortable doing all that right now? Think our MTIs feel comfortable? Not yet, right? MTI Schoolhouse, we get the opportunity to train ’em and kinda get ’em to that same level. It’s a different piece of what we’re doing. But they are super excited. Chief and I were just down, did an all-call with all of ’em two weeks ago, and they’re really, really excited about getting after this. So this is the interim capability, how we get it, those are AI visual representation, the picture’s there in the left. And we’ll talk a little bit more about it. So in September, this will be FOC for this interim training base, and we will begin this transformation there, Chief.
Chief Master Sgt. Colin A. Fleck:
Yeah, so you can see the different training stations that the team came up with there. So now you can picture, as a flight goes through those early weeks where they are focused on those things we talked about, to instill that teamwork, the discipline, the attention to detail. But then as they progress through in small teams, they get to apply those concepts. So you can imagine the difference in basic military training and the product that will come out of it, when you picture them taking those competencies that we give them early, and then giving them challenges to overcome here. And so if you picture a small team of trainees receiving a mission brief at each of those stations, telling them the situation, giving them the task to accomplish as a small team, the first thing they have to do is assign roles, safety observer roles. They have to pull out a technical order and start reading through technical orders. They have to run through their own risk management to decide what the top risks are. They have to brief that back to the TI to make sure that they’ve got it nailed down, and that they’re gonna be able to execute this safely. They assign roles on the team, and then they execute the task. The idea here is that we are not imparting technical skills on them. Quite frankly, we don’t even care if they actually get the objective done. What we’re looking for is can they execute as a team with that discipline, that attention to detail that we’re looking for, because we’ll start to inculcate them early, that the first thing you do is receive your mission. The next thing you do is recce the situation, and then you run your risk management to identify the top risks and mitigate them, and then you come up with a plan and you execute that plan. The mentality of these Airmen coming out of here when they get to take those small team dynamics and that discipline and apply it to these scenarios is incredible, but now they’re gonna run through each of these as they advance through BMT, and then, just like they do now, where they go off to their culminating exercise event at Pace or Forge, where they get to do this in an exercise scenario, a more robust, full story exercise scenario in a simulated, deployed environment or austere airfield, where all of this is happening at the time that they’re getting, they’re under attack, and there’s threats that are out there, and they have missions to accomplish that you can see here on those training stations. These are the objectives that they have to accomplish in a threat environment. We will forward deploy them to a deployed forward air base so that they can run through that exercise as that same small team and get these done under those threats.
Maj. Gen. Wolfe Davidson:
So that’s the next one. So this is on Lackland, marching distance from all of the new dorms. This is called the forward air base. We call this the forward air base training range. This is at the known Pace or Forge site. One of the things that was most striking to me the first time I went out to our new site was that, and if you look historically through, when we’ve done, we’ve done a lot of expeditionary stuff in BMT through the years, and every time we crank it up, you know, Beast Week, a lot of you probably went through that but every time we’ve cranked it up, the training we did was not Air Force training. It was Army training. Right, why? Because we didn’t have the training devices to actually train like we should be. I’ve trained an Airman for the Air Force mission. And that’s not bad. I mean, we still teach them some navigation and small unit tactics bases but on an air base defense concept. We don’t need you to form up and go do a patrol, right? We may need you to form up and go fill the gap where we had the violation of the perimeter, right? And we’re gonna go reconstitute the perimeter. That’s exactly what we need you to do. That’s what we need you to think about. Not going out on patrol like a Soldier, right? So this is out at Pace or Forge site. Again, another rapid piece. It was part of a 25 and FY26 funding. We went through site survey, environmental impacts, planning, design, and broke ground in under 120 days. Thanks to the 502nd, some incredible contractors that just know how to get things done and a team that was motivated because guess what? We don’t wanna miss another class of Airmen that missed this opportunity for training. So this is the Pace or Forge site. After they, towards their culminating exercise at the end of BMT, they’ll take from, think of the hub, right, at the air base training range and they will move out to a spoke in the deployed environment. The training devices will not be as pristine here. It’ll be more about the environment side and the threat-based approach for how they’re executing. But you can see here, these are some of the visualizations of running an airfield in a deployed environment, dirt strip type airfield that’s out there. None of these airfields are operational. They are simulators. These are training simulators as are the training devices that are there. So this is where they’ll be able to go through and get into their culminating exercise, right, which is their crucible event, right? So this is where they’ll get tired, they’ll get, you know, they’ll get a lot of problems they can’t solve. They’ll have to work through it and figure it out. And when they finish, they feel like they belong. One of the things that the 737th and the team that was building this when we first increased the Pace or Forge about last spring, we’re about 12 months into this transition, right, for BMT next. And we’re at what we call, we did BMT, we did first the BMT provisional at Pace or Forge, and we did 2.0 last October, 3.0 will be in April. And at the end game, we’ll show you in a second is what BMT next is like. So this is a transition. We can’t do it all in one sitting. But one of the things that the team found is that when they gave them their final culminating mission out at Pace or Forge, right, it was a go recover this precious cargo. So they had to go recover this precious cargo. And when they brought it back and opened it up, it was the Air Force patch. Right, when they finish this exercise, they should feel like they’re ready. And they should be ready to come out and serve with you on the line of wherever they are, right. Yeah, they’re gonna have to go back to Lackland and do some administrative stuff to close out BMT. But when they walk off of this airfield, they should feel like, I’m ready, I’m ready. ‘Cause I’ve done things in a historical context, I’ve learned about the future of the Air Force, the history of our Air Force, and those Airmen that have preceded me, and I’m ready to be one of them. And I’m damn proud of it. That’s what we want them to walk away from this, and they feel like they’ve accomplished something. That’s where that sense of being and belonging is. So those are the two things. This one is a little further behind. We’re still doing Pace or Forge, but it’s not behind in the timeline. You heard me talk about the timeline. Any civil engineers in here are probably a little shocked. Well, it is, and I’m sure there’ll be an investigation on how I got that done. (laughing) So, hey, it just takes good people who are interested in solving hard problems, right? That’s, and we happen to have a great team for that. This will be ready, so the first one of these airfields will be ready in spring of ’27, so we won’t get it this year in ’26, but spring of ’27, we’ll get the first one and the second one a little bit later than that. But incredible opportunity for us to train Airmen in the context of what it means to be an Airman, and create that air-minded sense. So the last chart we wanna show you here is what the final version looks like. This is located in the Valley Highgate, so marching distance. In fact, it’s built on where that initial one was. This is a four-zone airbase training range. That will be the basis of where we train Airmen. It’ll become the most utilized training range in the United States Air Force. There’ll be somebody on that range probably about 350 days a year. 42,000 Airmen, and even at the highest cost levels that we, and very conservative assumptions, you know, people are like, “That’s a lot of money. “You’re gonna have to build that thing.” Over a 20-year amortization, it costs us less than $200 per Airman trained to not only build the range, but to sustain it.
Chief Master Sgt. Colin A. Fleck:
$196.43 per Airman. That’s less than the jacket we issued.
Maj. Gen. Wolfe Davidson:
Less than the jacket we issued. Anybody think it’s worth it? Best deal the Air Force ever gets, right here. I am trying to get this funded with the Air Force. They haven’t figured that out. So, we actually have a decision brief with the chief here in a couple weeks. Yeah, this is what we call the airbase training range. Four zones, constantly moving, teams working out there all the time. This would be the hub where you’d deploy, where you’d go to execute your pacer forge and then deploy out to execute it. Sustainable training environment that is very, I would say is the most transformational thing we could do at BMT. Is give them the environment to actually make them Airmen where they feel like Airmen. Then we send them out to be at their tech school. They gotta learn their tech training, and they’ll go be great in whatever specialty that is. And while they’re at tech training, we’ve instituted something else called a bracer forge. So, bracer forge is a follow-on to this event. And every two weeks, while they’re in tech training, they will go back and do a touch point that comes back to being an Airman. What does it mean to defend, operate, generate, and sustain air power? Not so that I can replace my technical skills, so that I know why I do my technical skills and how they attach back to generating air power for our Air Force. So, that’s the basic concept of how we’re making this transition and the investments that we’ve put into it. So, across ATC right now, by the end of this year, we will have over $40 million invested in this process. Like I said, we’re bringing forward a proposal for this MilCon initiative to finish this out and build what I think is the Air Force’s premier training range. Chief?
Chief Master Sgt. Colin A. Fleck:
Yeah, so like, you know, our objective from where we sit is that if you ask, and we get to talk to a lot of Airmen, ’cause, you know, 2nd Air Force has BMT, but it’s got all the tech schools. Everywhere we go, we get to talk to a lot of Airmen recently through basic training. And when you ask Airmen today, hey, what did you get out of basic training? You know, what was your experience, and what did you learn from it? They say all the right things. You know, they say, I learned what our core values are. That’s important. You know, I learned how to put on a uniform. I learned how to salute. I learned customs and courtesies. I learned the rank structure. You know, I learned how to march. I learned why attention to detail is important. You know, they say all of those kinds of things. Under BMT next, when we get this done, they’re still gonna say those things, ’cause we’re still doing those things. But then they will add onto that. And I learned that every single Airman, regardless of specialty, has a vital role to play in the mission of our Air Force to fly, fight, and win by defending, operating, generating, sustaining air power from air bases. Think about the change. Just think about the buy-in from them and the motivation levels and their connection to that mission and how revolutionary this is gonna be for the enlisted corps as we move forward. And that’s at the heart of it. That’s our objective. It is to instill that identity so that when you do ask an Airman who’s in the Air Force what they do, they’ll say, “I’m an Airman.” Right, and that’s what I wanna hear. If I hear that before I’m retired, I’m gonna know we did the right thing here. We did something important.
Maj. Gen. Wolfe Davidson:
Well, I retire in four months. I’m not sure we’ll get there. We’re trying. But we’re gonna try. So when do we do this? Right, so I mentioned we’re about 12 months into it. BMT 3.0 rolls out in April, which is a complete rewrite of the BMT curriculum focused on a small teams basis, operational context, less classroom, less time in the dorms, more practical exercise, more PT, and 2.0, we increase PT. So if somebody comes to you, they’re not in shape, it’s not because of tech training, right? At BMT and tech school, they will PT every day. So don’t ruin ’em when they get to you. So that’s the foundation that we’re gonna set. And as I mentioned earlier, how do you wanna change the Air Force? Throughout history, I had the opportunity to serve as the exec to the chief of staff of the Air Force for two years, and when you’re in the glass doors up with the chief master sergeant of the Air Force and the team, you get sucked into the world revolves around that headquarters, and you forget that it actually revolves around a squadron. We gotta produce Airmen that can succeed in the squadron. And the best way to do that is to make sure that whatever mission that squadron gets tasked to do, that we have created Airmen that can identify the problem, can solve the problem, can work as a team, and know why they do it. And they do it to defeat an adversary with air power. When we’ve got there, I am more than convinced that this is gonna raise the game for our entire Air Force. Right, 93% of the Air Force comes through Second Air Force. When we get the opportunity to impart these types of, this type of culture. You know, as old Peter Drucker used to say, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” How do you change culture? That’s what I tell you we’re trying to do right now. Now, what is the most common question we get from NCOs? That sounds great, and there’s probably about 30 of you with this question here. That sounds great, and then they show up at their first unit. Forget all that stuff that you learned. You’re a, right? I can’t fix that, but y’all can. I am hopeful though, because all of you remember your first supervisor, and you remember one of two things. You remember this is what I’m gonna follow, this is the stuff that I’m gonna emulate, and these are the things I am never gonna do. I am hopeful that if we train them like this, and they show up to a supervisor who’s like, “Hey, forget all that crap. “You need to be focused on these things.” They will put them in that latter category. And so when I’m a supervisor in three years, two years, man, we’re gonna get focused on the mission. And my team’s gonna know exactly why what we do matters to the Air Force and how it contributes to the nation. And it won’t take long. Like I said, a third of the Air Force will have this experience within three years. It’ll change quick. And we also know the minute that one of those MTIs and those teams walk out on that for the training range for the first time, we will never go back at basic military training. We will say, “What have we been doing “for the last 50 years?” And that’s the experience we’re exactly getting from the trainees today. Okay, we only got about a minute and a half left for us to close up. So Chief, I’ll let you close up, and then I’ll close it, and then we’ll end you with a fly-in of this actual event.
Chief Master Sgt. Colin A. Fleck:
Yeah, again, just thanks for the time and letting us share with you today. Hopefully we imparted some understanding of what we’re getting after and why and how passionate we are for this. And so General Davidson quotes General Goldfein on this one a lot, but obviously nobody hopes that we ever end up in a full-scale war, but the quote is, “We don’t know when, “we don’t know if, but we certainly don’t know when, “but we do know that we have every day “between today and that one to get ready, “and that we as leaders owe it to our Airmen “to make sure that we’re doing everything in our power “every single day to ensure that we don’t send them “into a fair fight.” And this is just our way of getting after it right at BMT to instill that mission drive, that ownership and that connection that will make them better and give them opportunities and a mindset early to help them buy into that, to help them, to prepare them to be able to solve problems and tough scenarios and challenging situations, to succeed and to ensure that as many of them can survive and return from that fight honorably. And so, again, just appreciate the time letting us share with y’all today.
Maj. Gen. Wolfe Davidson:
Hey, thanks again for taking the time here. We are really excited, if you can’t tell about this, like, putting me in a chair is like strapping me down, it’s killing me here, but, you know, my question for you is, okay, that sounds great, and here’s the most common thing we hear, man, I wish I could go to BMT again. Well, you can, as an MTI. Facts, right? In fact, we need ’em, right? We need ’em, right? We need folks that are ready to go teach people that. We’ll train you how, we’ll train you how to train ’em, and then you go train ’em. And the second thing I’d offer to you is, okay, make sure your section, your people, are attached to the mission in the same way. You don’t have to be trained to solve problems. NCOs solve problems. NCOs are what drive our Air Force, right? Everybody knows that. Everybody knows that, right? Well, guess what? We’re building the next generation of NCOs a little bit differently than we built ’em in the past. Right, embrace that. And let’s go get after it, ’cause I know for a fact our nation will not win a war without air power. And air power depend on NCOs. And I personally am interested in making sure we win, ’cause my son is darning this uniform too, like a lot of yours. And every one of these are somebody’s son. Thank you. Thank you guys, appreciate it.