United Forces & Families: Senior Leaders Perspectives
September 16, 2026
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Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Okay. Well, good afternoon everyone. It’s been a great three days. And as we close out the 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference, this is the best way to do it. We’re focusing on the people who make the Air Force and the Space Force successful every day, which is our Airmen and Guardians.
Military service has always been a family endeavor. That’s why supporting Airmen and Guardians and the families who serve alongside them is a key part of our mission at AFA. Behind every employment, every PCS, every late night mission, every promotion, and every challenge, there is a family making it happen. And sometimes that means making sacrifices as well. At AFA, we firmly believe that readiness begins at home. Strong families contribute to strong units. Strong units contribute to strong forces, and strong forces are what makes our national security.
This year, there’s an additional opportunity to elevate the experiences and the perspectives of military spouses and families through the President’s Military Spouse Commission. The issues being discussed aren’t new. Military spouses have been navigating challenges involving employment, education, childcare, healthcare, frequent moves and more, for generations.
What is exciting is the opportunity to bring this additional visibility and attention to these issues and ensure that military family experiences across the entire joint force continue to inform national conversations about readiness, retention, quality of life, and quality of service. Several members on this panel will be contributing to those discussions, and the AFA is ready to help wherever we can.
Today, we have leaders, spouses on the stage who have collectively spent decades serving, leading, raising families, and supporting Airmen and Guardians around the world. So we’re going to get this conversation started. So thank you all for being here today, and thank you for sharing with our Airmen and Guardians out in the audience.
Let’s start with this one. You have all spent careers leading Airmen and Guardian around the world. Your far better halves has spent the same number of years leading and supporting you and Airmen and Guardians around the world as well. So just look back, and how have your perspectives on leadership changed over the years and what have you learned from each other and the families you’ve led? Let’s go ahead and start with the Wilsbachs, and we can just move on down the line.
Gen. Ken Wilsbach:
All right. Thanks, General Field. I really appreciate this opportunity to discuss these issues a little bit different than, say, my keynote or some of the other topics we were taking. But as I think about your question, when you start out earlier in your career, especially in the operational world, you’re very focused on the mission. You know, get really good at doing your mission. And over the years as I’ve gotten more responsibility, and especially in command, you really obviously still have to concentrate on the mission, but the people piece of this really expands. And Cindy’s really helped me with this.
And of course, we’ve been married the entire time I’ve been in the Air Force, so 41 years and 26 moves. Yeah. That’s been Cindy along with me, but she’s helped me to pull in the family aspect of this too. In each of our commands, we really try to foster this idea of a team effort. We’ve done this with the Wolfes on multiple command positions. And when you’re a squadron command with a first sergeant and really bringing in the entire unit, including the families, and doing things that promote camaraderie and this family aspect, and Cindy’s a fantastic host and she’s great at parties.
And so, we throw a lot of parties. We have people to our house. And we just really try to learn more about them than what you can learn at work and get to know them. And even from when we were a squadron command team, we still are in touch with so many people from our squadron, because we built strong relationships that… I left command in 2002, that was 24 years ago, and we’re still in touch with most of the pilots for certain and their families. And now, their kids are joining the Air Force. And so, that team building and the ability to have that camaraderie really creates more mission.
Cindy Wilsbach:
Hi, everyone. I will add a little bit to that. As Ken said, we’ve been married through this entire journey. We met in 10th grade geometry class, in Mrs. Worthington’s geometry class. So we’ve known each other a very long time.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
We know who is looking on whose paper too.
Cindy Wilsbach:
I was definitely looking on his paper for that. But for that entire time that I’ve known him, Ken is disciplined and focused and a man of faith and principle and high standards for himself first for everyone else. And as I’ve watched him, he wants everyone to do well and to lead well and to be the best at what they do. And he’s been very mission-focused. But what I will tell you is a story from our Wing Command at Kadena circa 2009.
We would have deployed spouse dinners every week where Ken and I would go speak. And there would be a line forming of everybody who was the families, the spouses and families, would go through. And Ken would say, “How you doing?” And shake his hand and they’re happy to meet the general. And they would say, “Fine. Everybody’s fine. Everything’s great.” And Ken’s walking a couple steps ahead of me for one spouse and her children, and she says, “Fine.” And she’s smiling.
And he walks past her, and her smile fades and her eyes hit the floor. And I knew she wasn’t fine. And so I stepped back and said, “Is everything okay?” And it wasn’t okay. She had a health problem with the child, and her husband is thousands of miles away, and she is thousands of miles away from home and everything that’s familiar. And she had the Wing Commander asking her, did she need anything? And she said, “No.” But when I asked her, she said, “Yes.” And that shows me the value of what I bring to this table.
Not that he’s not interested, but I sometimes see things and am told things that he doesn’t. And I realized then that is the value of seeing a little bit different perspective. And we see that every time we travel, every time we are around the country and the world meeting with families. And that is why it’s so important that I think we learn from each other. We see different parts, and both are valuable because our families matter so much.
CMSAF David Wolfe:
Thank you. Thanks for that. General Field, you characterized our collective service as decades. I thank you for using that term. You probably could’ve used a different word.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
No, but there’s so many people up here, and they’re so young looking, at least some of you.
CMSAF David Wolfe:
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
It’s the total is decades.
CMSAF David Wolfe:
Yeah. Maybe double-digit decades, I guess. There’s another word for that. But we do really have a strong Air Force, folks. We’ve been traveling around together, as the boss mentioned, for a number of years. And we’ve been to so many places in our Air Force, and we’ve been so impressed to see all of our Airmen and their families and how strong they are and how resilient they are. But it really, it’s because of leaders like General Field and the folks that have come before us that have built the Air Force that we have now. And certainly, we’ve been helping build it too.
But I see one of my predecessors in the audience, Chief Master on the Air Force number 14, Gerald Murray, thank you so much for being here and for being one of those leaders that helped build this Air Force and make it what it is today. It really means a lot to us that you’re still engaged and helping with AFA and still leading our Airmen. I got to watch Chief Murray mentor two young men last night about how they need to be joining AFA. They got a good 10-minute lecture from the Chief Master in the Air Force about making that happen. So he’s doing his part for sure.
I guess what I’ve learned over the years is that everybody has the potential to be going through something hard at any given time. And it doesn’t matter how young you are or how old you are, life is coming at us. And if things are going really well right now, you should probably enjoy that, because chances are in this world and with the way things go, adversity is coming. Right? And what I love about our Air Force is we’ve got all of these people around us all the time that are interested in picking us up, in that story that Cindy just described, and stopping everything they’re doing to focus on what it is that you need as an individual at that moment at that time.
And I know there’s stories throughout this audience that you’ve seen it. And there’s people in this room, and you’ve done it. You’ve been that person that stopped what you were doing and helped. And I’m just not sure that that’s replicated across organizations, across our country, and across the world. I think people care, but our level of care in this organization, I’ve just learned over and over and over again that there’s really nothing that people won’t do to help each other out. And we want everybody to know that if they don’t feel it, wherever they are right now, we want them to have that.
And that’s why General Wilsbach describes that kind of perfect unit where everybody around you is rooting for you and they’re helping you and they know what’s going on in your life. We want that built everywhere. And folks, we’ve got it right now at our level. We’ve got a super solid professional friendship between the Wilsbachs and the Wolfes that it’s always evolving, but always focused on the same things, which is helping you, trying to make the Air Force better, and trying to find problems and knock them down.
And for us to be able to do that with two spouses that are getting paid $0 to do any of the things that they do every day for us, and quite frankly, could be doing a lot of other things with their time when they’re hanging out with us, we’re just super lucky. And I believe the Air Force is lucky to have these two wonderful spouses helping us out. So thank you.
Dr. Doniel Wolfe:
Well, General, you asked about what I’ve learned along the way. And something I’ve thought a lot about since I had a conversation with our trip planner and Dave at PACAF, and we were talking about what a difference it would make if everybody just said hi to each other. And Dave told me in the trip planner, “I always say hi to everybody.” And both of us were like, “No, you don’t. Nobody ever does that.” And he’s like, “No, I do.”
And so, we were peppering him with scenarios like, “Well, how do you say hi if it’s a big group of people?” Or, “How do you say hi in this case?” And he had an answer for every single one. And ever since that conversation, I’m not saying Dave’s all that great, don’t get me wrong, but he is great at noticing people he’s walking by, and I love that. And since we had that conversation, I’ve thought a lot about that. Dave kind of alluded to it.
We have a friend that told us once, “If you treat everybody you meet as if they are going through some big trouble in their life, more than half the time, you’ll be right.” And so, I think that’s where hi becomes even more powerful and important. And as hard as it is sometimes for us to do, we don’t know what effect that has. But I do believe that you saying hi to someone even when it’s hard lifts your spirit.
I do believe, regardless of the reaction, it lifts their spirit. I also believe they’ll probably tell somebody that, especially if it’s the commander or the command chief or someone in a leadership position, they’ll tell somebody that they said hi to them. And then, it will lift their spirit. So I believe it’s contagious and I believe it’s simple. It’s free.
It costs the Air Force and you nothing except maybe a little gumption just to say hi. And I think that’s something that I try and take with me everywhere we go. Even when we’re walking around AFA, I’m trying to notice the people that maybe aren’t with someone or that don’t look like they’re having the best time. I just love saying hi. And I hope that I remember to do it more often than I do today, tomorrow.
Gen. Doug Schiess:
Hey, Burt, thanks for always doing this panel. I know Debbie and I have sat out there many a times, and it’s just great to see the leaders up here to, for one, to see that they’re real people and they sometimes have the same problems that folks in there have, and that we want to make sure that we’re taking care of them. So continue to do this, AFA. We really appreciate that you allow the spouses to come and you take time to ensure that they get some development as well. So really, really appreciate it.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Thank you, CSO. And the Secretary did ask me to-
Gen. Doug Schiess:
Oh, no. Come one.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
… remind everybody that while this is not General Schiess first time on the stage as the CSO, it is Mrs. Schiess, Debbie’s first time as the wife of the CSO on the stage.
Gen. Doug Schiess:
And everybody’s here because Debbie’s here, not because I’m here, but thanks. A couple of things that you said on what I’ve learned over the time as a team. Debbie’s been there from the very beginning, 36 years married. She was there at my cadet change of command when I was the cadet commander at UCLA. And so, she’s seen it all. I told her we’re doing this for five years. I can’t count. The five years will be up in about four years.
But the things I’ve learned from Debbie is, one, that I don’t have the same perspective that she has. And so sometimes she has this great way of saying to me, “By the way.” And then I know that she’s going to give me some knowledge that I don’t have that she’s gotten from, as Cindy was saying, people will talk to her and tell her things that they won’t tell me. And so, that has carried on for a long time. We used to watch the Welshes, Mark Welsh, and how they interacted together. And that’s where we kind of learned some of our stuff from.
But I remember the first time I said, “Hey, we’re doing our first commander’s call as a squadron commander.” And I said, “Oh, by the way, Debbie’s going to talk.” And they’re like, “What are you talking about?” “No, Debbie’s going to get up and talk.” “No, we don’t do that.” I’m like, “Well, I think I’m the squadron commander. I think we are going to do that.” And I’ll tell you that what we got afterwards from her talking and the things that we learned from that is incredible. And so, we’ve continued to do that every command that we’ve had.
And she’s got plenty of stories where she would come and say, “Hey, by the way, did you know that this is happening? Oh, by the way, when you decided to do this on Wednesday afternoon in the middle of the day, that’s the day that kids get done early on school, and you didn’t think about that.” And I said, “Thanks. Thanks for letting me know that.” But it’s that teamwork of that she’s got a different perspective than I do, and she can help us get after what we need to do to take care of our families. And so, I think those are the things that I’ve learned, by the way.
Debbie Schiess:
Thanks, by the way. He’s very gracious about my feedback. This has been an amazing journey for us, and I have learned so much from him. You asked what we’ve learned from each other, and I’ve learned how to take a deep breath and be a little calmer because he has a very calm response where I tend to react. So I’ve learned how to take a deep breath. I’ve learned that there’s always more to the story. When a family comes and shares their story with me and I get spun up because I want to help right away. And learning there’s more to the story, and so to get the full picture.
I’ve learned that if I want to help fix things for one person, I should look bigger and think, “Is this a problem for everyone or is this just something with this family?” And if there’s a way to fix it for everyone, that’s the way to go. I’ve learned so much. And I have so appreciated that he has always made space for me in that, that he has approached this like we are a team in this, that I understand the why. If I understand the why, then I can invest more and I can support better.
And so taking the time to fill me in, even if he can’t give me the details to say, “There’s something big going on, stress levels are high. It will pass at this point.” Those kind of pieces of information help me to better support. And so, I’m really grateful for that and for the years that we have gotten to care for people. It’s really, really meant a lot.
CMSSF John Bentivegna:
General Field, again, thanks for hosting the panel and for the great questions. So through the years that Cathy and I have been doing this, what I’ve learned is to let Cathy speak first.
Cathy Bentivegna:
Good afternoon, everyone. As they were talking about here, so John and I were married before he even joined the Air Force. So we’ve known each other for a long time. We grew up in this journey and everything. So leading in military family, as we were talking about, is a team sport. Okay? All your family members, you’re a team. John is the quarterback, our daughter is the wide receiver, and then Neil is the running back, and I’m Taylor Swift. Anyway.
So when he gets deployed, he goes away, that’s his away game. So now, we’re home. So I’m the quarterback, taking care of everyone. But then, I still have team members. They still have their own roles, because in order to do that, you have to have good communication. You have to understand the mission, what’s going on, and then he’s taking care of his away game family. But then when he comes back and reintegrates within our family, then he goes back to being a quarterback, and I go back and being a GM. Now, I get promoted.
So anyway, I’m just saying that leadership in military family is very, very important. And you have to teach that to your own kids as well, so that they can pass it along, and so that other family that you speak to, that you meet within the military community can see it, and you can impart that same vision and whatever you’re doing with your family to them. Thank you.
CMSSF John Bentivegna:
I got nothing after. That’s great.
Cathy Bentivegna:
Yeah, you do.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
So I’ll jump in with General Schiess here. One of the things that phrased around is, “A ready Airman or a ready Guardian requires a ready family.” So from your perspective, how does family stability and family being ready for the service member to deploy and fight directly impact a war fighter’s readiness and mental focus during a deployment, or executing operations at home like happens in the Space Force? And obviously over the past year, this has been going on a lot for both the Air Force and the Space Force. So what’s your perspective on that?
Gen. Doug Schiess:
Yeah, thanks Burt. What I would say is they’re different. The Space Force has folks deployed down range just like the other services, and we talked about one of those. Specialist Gray earlier this week and the things there with her family back home. And so, we have to be able to do that working with our partners to make sure that those folks are ready for when, as Cathy said, the away game. And so, we’re doing that.
But one of the things that we’ve really noticed too, and I know in the Air Force on the RPA side, that has some of the similar things is, our folks are in their Space Force generation or SPAFORGEN, they’re going into the ops center and they’re doing a mission, and that mission is impacting lives on the other side of the world. And then, they got to come home and mow the lawn or make sure dinner’s done or do soccer practice. And sometimes that transition is a little difficult.
You know, I think about the folks at all of our missile warning sites that are providing critical saving lives to folks down range. They’re doing mass raids, they’re making sure that information’s getting there, and then they got to get in their car, and stop off and pick up the groceries. And sometimes, as Debbie said too, “Hey, can the members tell their spouses a little bit about what’s going on?” You know, they’re like, “Hey, you’re home now. I need you to do these things.” And they’re still processing what happened.
So we’re trying to work through that. We talked about within the Space Force, you know? We’ve all done the deployed dinners, and that’s great. But sometimes we got to make sure we’re taking care of the folks that are doing the mission in town. But what I would say is regardless of what that is, either, one, deployed down range or employed, we’ve got to make sure we have the resources and the things.
So when someone is having some issues, as Cindy said, when someone says, “I’ve got a kid problem with medical,” or whatever, they’re not afraid to come ask us for help. They know that we’re going to be there and we’re going to try to solve their situations. And so, we’ve got to communicate. We’ve got to be able to give them the resources. And so, I think we’re really working on that, but we can continually get better.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Okay. Any other thoughts on that one?
CMSSF John Bentivegna:
Yeah. I’ll just jump in as Debbie’s getting the mic. A lot of us who have deployed traditionally, I remember when I went down range, everything, all the support structure for the service member is around 24-hour a day, seven days a week operations. I can remember getting off at 3:00 in the morning, I could go get my laundry done. I could stop by the chapel’s office. I could watch a movie. I can get ice cream, what I wanted to get. So some sense of normalcy and the support network was there for us because we’re focused on the fight.
That level of infrastructure is not, right, what our employed in place forces are seeing and feeling every day. It’s just hard, right? So in addition to the stressors of life is difficult in and of itself. But when you’re trying to deal with life in addition to your war fighting mission and the responsibility we’re placing on the shoulders of these young men and women, it’s just a lot to kind of think about in a different perspective than the traditional model, right? Of the individual thinking it’s the away game all the time.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Right.
CMSSF John Bentivegna:
And we spend a lot of time talking about those nuances and how do we address them.
Debbie Schiess:
The thing I wanted to add is that I think one of the unique things for the Space Force is that the Air Force, you can see the airplanes taking off. You can see what’s happening out on the flight line. For the Space Force, unless you’re in the launch bases, you can’t see what’s happening. And so for our families, a lot of them don’t understand the why. And I think for all of the members out there, you can’t tell classified things, but you can give your family members, and I’m talking extended family, your parents, your siblings, a better understanding of the why we need a Space Force and what you’re doing.
Because when we understand the why, then we get behind it. It’s just like I was saying, we had an instance where he was working really long hours. He wasn’t home during light of day for weeks on end, and I was frustrated. He came home one night and I said, “You know? You’re doing a really great job at work, but as a husband and father right now, you’re not cutting it.” I can only tell this story because he’s told it before, and Bob like that. And he realized that he was not communicating to me the depth of pressure that he was under. And as soon as he did that, I totally backed off, and I was his biggest cheerleader.
Because when I understood the why and why these things were important and what was happening, then I could support better. And so for Space Force families, please, we got to educate our family members to know the why. I mean, even when you are working in a very secure facility, we always try to do once a year where the mission gets transferred, and you let families in. Because when families get a taste of the important work you’re doing, man, they come on board fast. So share the mission.
Gen. Ken Wilsbach:
I’d like to expand on Debbie’s point because she made some really good points, but I’ll give you an illustration. So we were just recently overseas, and we stopped off at… We’ve been at Lakenheath, we’ve been at Ramstein, we’ve been at Spangdahlem, we’ve been at Aviano, and all of those bases have been incredibly deployed. And some of them have had squadrons that have been deployed for a year. And in the last two years, one of them, 17 months in the last 24 months, they’ve been deployed in some way or another.
And they’re overseas, they’re already away from home, and their family member has been deployed for most of the time that they’ve been there. And that takes some special care by the folks that are still on the base to make sure that the family is ready for that. There’s other things like HERAVACs. We’ve been in plenty of places where all the units pack up and leave. The families are there, and they have to fend for themselves while a hurricane is en route, and they have to leave or non-combatant evacuation. If you’re in Korea, you know that.
And so, the families have to know how to do that. And guess what? The individual service members aren’t so good at telling their families how to do that. And so, that’s on the leadership to make sure that you have those conversations often so that the families are updated. So just the pre-deployment brief before they leave, that can’t be a one and done. You have to occasionally go back and give a report, “Hey, everybody down range is doing great.” And make sure, “Hey, is everything going fine? Everything’s good at school. Everything’s good at the med group.”
All those questions that you can ask, and having the spouses get together if you’re in leadership and just organizing events. And it can be any kind of event you want to make, just make an event. And Cindy always says, “Pizza and Yoohoos,” whatever it is, just put something together. And it doesn’t matter what it is, but you get people together and you have that connectivity.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Yeah. Can you just talk a little bit more about that? So we have the Airman and Guardian that are deployed, and then you got this home operation going on here. And I got somebody out here on the tactical edge and I got somebody back home running the operation on the home front. And then, we have to communicate, or we have to pass words, and we have to make sure everybody knows what’s going on. And so, that has become more difficult it seems in the present than it was in the past.
And then to your point about an RPA pilot or a Guardian that’s in the fight right now tonight, all night, and coming home in the morning and coming home to the spouse that says, “Hey, thanks a lot. Our baby’s been up all night.” So how are we doing in those areas and making sure that you guys have done so much more than when my mom was doing this in the 1950s and ’60s. So how are we doing out there on the comm side, on the helping on the home front operations side? Cindy, you want to start on that?
Cindy Wilsbach:
I will say, the mantra we say again, again, “Connection, connection, connection with the families.” One of the things that is painful to me when I travel around is how much our sponsorship program has degraded in our services. I don’t know if it’s every service. That is the initial contact we’re making with people to make them feel like we knew you were coming, and we’re glad you’re here and you’re part of the family, and we’re going to take care of you. And it starts there.
But when we are talking about deployments and operations where families are left, we owe it to them that we’re communicating to them. We need leadership that is taking the lead in that. And what we say is, when we travel that there is no requirement for you to have a spouse in leadership that is going to take their role, but there’s somebody within that unit that will, and we need for them to do that. We need for them to be doing outreach.
And one of the things that has been a longstanding issue for me is the inability for those people that are volunteers in the Air Force side, it’s the key support liaisons who are appointed by our commanders to be that liaison between our families. And we’ve asked them to do this and they’ve stood up and said they will. And yet, we haven’t equipped them by giving them the contact information for our families such that someone is contacting them and talking about it.
And I will tell you when things kicked off in February, and I heard from people around the globe who knew people stationed in this area who said to me, “Cindy, their spouse is gone and this spouse has heard from no one. No one has contacted her. No one has reached out to her.” It wasn’t just one or two people. I heard it from a lot of people whose friends have said, “Nobody’s even reached out.” That should break our hearts for our families. And we have to be better at that. So the good news is that… And Doniel, would you like to take it from here what we’re trying to do to get around that?
Dr. Doniel Wolfe:
Sure. Just this weekend, some of you may have already received one. We have a great chief in our office, Chief Montgomery. She created a card that teaches leaders in the unit how to print out a roster for AFPAAS for key support liaisons. And the direction is going to be to those leaders to make sure that your key support liaison is getting an updated roster on a regular basis. It’s step one through five, and it makes it really easy for a commander to then give that to somebody that he or she is tasked with working with the key support liaisons. Often, frankly, that’s our first sergeants.
And it teaches them exactly how to do it, to pull the exact right data because we don’t want everybody having all the data in AFPAAS, right? That’s secure. But we’re getting our key support liaisons the tools that they need. Like Cindy said, this is a readiness program. And too many times when you check into a unit, they give you a form to fill out. Oftentimes, service members are leaving the contact information for their spouse blank or they’re putting their own in there. And what happens is when there’s a deployment, when there’s an emergency, we’re not contacting a spouse. And then, they’re mad we didn’t contact their spouse when they didn’t fill out the information.
So we’ve worked on this problem for a very long time. We’ve heard it every single base we’ve visited. I’m sure the Space Force as well as I’m sure the Navy and the Army and Marines have too. So we’re hoping with Legal’s blessing that this is the way forward, that we will arm KSLs with the power to actually do what we’ve asked them to do. And that’s make initial contact with new families to the unit and support deployed families. And then, of course, in any kind of emergent situation.
Gen. Doug Schiess:
Hey, Burt, can I add something to that?
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Yes.
Gen. Doug Schiess:
This is awesome. We are completely on board with that. But I’m talking to the members out here. When Doniel said that they didn’t put their number down or they put their own number down, Debbie and I had to make the ultimate announcement to a young spouse one time, and we were continually calling this number. Well, we were calling the cell phone of the member that had passed away in Syria. And she was in her house, us were knocking on her door, and she was afraid because she didn’t know why these people were knocking on her door in the middle of the night.
But the number we were calling, because he didn’t want his wife’s number to be on something. We are the most connected people in the world. All of you are probably tracking each other right now on where you’re at. My kids track where I’m at, but then we don’t want to give a number to someone. But when the time is needed to contact that people, you want to be contacted. And so to the members out there, don’t take away that ability for a spouse to be connected with our KSLs and others. It just doesn’t make any sense, so.
Debbie Schiess:
Well, and I’ll add the AFPAAS system is only going to be as good as you keep it updated. So you have to keep it updated. In case of emergency, we have had numerous times where family members needed to be contacted and it was outdated information. So please, please take care of your families on that simple step.
Cathy Bentivegna:
Okay. So I just want to share with you my own experience. When John was deployed early 2000s, I don’t even know if KSL is in existence back then, and we did not live on base. I had a full-time job. So I had my own community, my neighbors, my friends, non-military related, and he was deployed. And then his squadron commander actually mailed me a note with his information like, “Hey, if you need anything.” His phone number, his email. And I was like, “Oh, my gosh.” That touched me. That was a big deal.
And that was in Buckley Air Force Base back then. I started getting involved in Buckley because I was like, “You know what? This is awesome. If they’re inviting me for a social, for an event, I would go even though it’s an hour away because we lived in Castle Rock, and it was in Denver. Anyway, so I just wanted to share that with you. So that’s a good best practice, I guess, that I don’t know if all the commanders would write their deployed spouses, but I don’t know. But that was…
CMSSF John Bentivegna:
Yeah. And so, that was like 2002 when that happened. And to your point, I think, and you tell the story a lot because you still remember it. But it was the act of reaching out, right? And how many spouses who have a member that’s maybe not home, is maybe just waiting for someone to reach out to them because they didn’t have the number. The worst that could happen is you send a note or make a phone call, send a text or an email, you don’t get an answer back. Right? This is where leadership comes in, analog leadership. You got to get in there and you got to take care of it.
Dr. Doniel Wolfe:
Burt, can I add that if you are interested in having one of those cards… Morganne, are you back there? Morganne Tilley-Lafitte right there. She has about 200 of them on her person. So catch up with her on our team, and she’ll get you one.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Let’s go to some specific things that might be of interest to folks. And I’ll start with Chief Wolfe. Over the last few years, there’ve been significant focus on quality of life and quality of service issues, including childcare, education, family, capacity, IEP support, Purple Star families, those kind of issues that we’re looking at. Where have you seen the most meaningful progress? Because I know we’ve done a whole bunch of stuff, and my children are in the military and are recipients of many of those programs. So where are we doing really well and where do we still need to put some effort in?
CMSAF David Wolfe:
That’s a great question, Burt. Things are actually heading in the right direction in almost all the areas that you just described. And one of the focus areas that I know that the General and Cindy are hot on, and Doniel certainly is, is focusing on the stuff that affects our children, right? That affect the kids. Our military spouses had a choice, right?And frankly, they can leave and not be part of this if they don’t want to. We hope they don’t, all of us for sure. But our kids are stuck with the decisions of their parents, and I think we owe them the best that we possibly can.
So when we’re talking about youth programs and we think about the access that we have to good educational opportunities for our kids, I don’t know how many of you have been on an installation that has a STARBASE. Don’t get Doniel started talking about STARBASE and how awesome that is. It’s a STEM program for fifth graders. If you don’t have one, you should be bugging the National Guard to get one. They’re in charge of that program for us. It’s an amazing program. But we’ve got work to do. We’ve got a number of MILCON projects right now to try to get our CDC wait times down. That’s going in the right direction.
Some of it’s MILCON, some of it’s employment. We are working really hard on the spouse employment pipeline. I talked in my keynote about the Global Military Spouse Connection. Frankly, just a little bit more detail about that. I would describe that as an amazing, good start. Right? It’s a good place to start, but we’ve got so much more opportunity here. I think with what the four spouses here are going to be involved in with the Military Spouse Commission, we’ve got an opportunity to make some real change to laws that prevent us from hiring people fast enough and putting people into jobs and places and moving positions around, so that we can get the best economy based on what we’ve got for our military spouses.
And I know this is crazy talk, if there’s any lawyers in the room, I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable, but wouldn’t it be great if we had a joint spouse program for military and GS employees, where we allowed the opportunity for a military spouse to see themselves in our system long term, because we had at least a way to look and see if it was possible for them to be able to move with their military spouse, maybe even before we decided where the military member needed to go next.
You know, not going to be possible in every situation. We could list out all the barriers there, but guess what? We could knock some of those barriers down if we really get together and think about this and work on it. And then if there is a barrier that requires some kind of congressional oversight rule, law change, hey, we know people that do that for a living, right? That change laws. In fact, I think, isn’t that kind of the whole point of AFA, right? As one of our partners that they help us-
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Absolutely.
CMSAF David Wolfe:
… with what’s happening and what’s getting in the way of our folks being happy and having the resources they need. So I’m really excited about that. Another thing that I think we’re doing really, really well in is the attitude of our civilian leadership in this department right now. Obviously, I’ve never been the Chief Master Sergeant in the Air Force before. I don’t know what it was like before. I can’t imagine that it’s been better though with the quality of leaders that we have leading this Air Force right now that were our civilian appointees and the people that they brought with them.
I haven’t been given the cold shoulder or told that I… You know? And I say some crazy stuff, come up with some crazy ideas. And they are willing to try and see what is in the realm of the possible to make things better for our Airmen. So I think we just have a great opportunity right now. If you can’t tell, I’m really optimistic about what’s in the realm of the possible over these next few years.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
That’s great. And so to continue on that, on the initial part, can some of the spouses talk about how is this commission going to work? How are you getting information from Airmen, Guardians, families? What do you all see it producing over the long run? How’s it going? I mean, it’s just starting, but-
Cindy Wilsbach:
It is. It is.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
… we’re pretty optimistic.
Cindy Wilsbach:
We’re very hopeful and very optimistic. This has been a long time coming. And I will tell you that the spouses, the service secretaries, the senior enlisted and the service chief spouse, the joint chief spouses in the Oval Office in the beginning of August was not just a photo op, neither will this commission be. It was marching orders from the leader of the free world to say, “We see the military spouse family and we recognize there’s some longstanding generational problems that we need to get after.”
And so what we will do, we will have our first official meeting on Monday. And we are now seeking input from everyone, spouses everywhere on the White House site, whitehouse.gov/militaryspouse, share your story section in that. And we have been inundated certainly with the first rollout when we were in the Oval Office in August for people sharing their stories. That information is being compiled. And we are looking at the areas that you can all name that we are having issues with.
And the idea on this is to say we recognize there’s a lot of organizations out there doing great things that care about our families, and we know that. But we think that there might be a way to streamline some of that. Because the impetus for this was, I will say that we go to conferences, we do our coronas year after year after year. And I always joke we could just plop in the itinerary from the year and the year before that and the year before that because the problems are still there, and we really haven’t moved the needle enough on those.
So we thought that this is a way to go that will add to the work that’s being done when we have a direct report to the President to say, “Here are some ideas, here’s some way forward, and can you help us do this?” And so, that is the hope that we have. And what you’re looking at with the people that are serving on that commission are, obviously, have been in a while. We are at the end of the road, this time really, for us the end of the road, of the end of our time serving.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
You heard it here first.
Cindy Wilsbach:
But people, there have been some pushback to say, “Why aren’t there all ranks serving on there?” Well, there are reason for that. I think when you look at the people that are serving on that commission, we love our forces. We love our services that we’re serving in, and we are at the end of our time. And you know what? Who better to say we want a legacy that is stronger than 41 years ago when we got in, so that we move the ball down the field a little bit more to make life better for the family. So we are invested in that. It’s a legacy for us and we are proud to serve. We have marching orders. We’re ready to go and we’re very hopeful to see what’s going to happen.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Awesome. Debbie?
Debbie Schiess:
Yeah, I’ll just add. It’s a great opportunity. And we are really hopeful for the things that could come out of this. Cindy has certainly done a ton of work to see this happen. We want to represent you well. We want to serve you well. And the way that we do that is to know you well. So if we come for a visit, please come talk to us, come tell us the good, tell us what’s going really well, and tell us the hard things. You don’t have to hold back. We want to know because we can represent you better and we can create change better when we really know you well. So help us do that.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
And I’m sure Cathy and Doniel, as partners in crime in this, you guys are very invested in helping that also. And so, this is bridging from a spouse’s career and how do I have a career as my spouse moves across the military, inside the CONUS or outside the CONUS, to childcare, to education, to healthcare. You guys are out collecting information, so that you can put that into the commission in hopes of making it better for our generations to come, right? How are you all working together to do that?
Dr. Doniel Wolfe:
Well, as we talked about earlier, we’ve been with the Wilsbachs for quite a while, and we travel together a lot. General Wilsbach has made it a priority. He knows that when we’re on a visit, and him and Dave have to look at the operational tactical level type things happening for the mission. And having Cindy and I there looking at the quality of life programs, meeting with spouses and first sergeants and even visiting kids. Actually, on our team we’ve talked about we want to start adding teenagers to the itinerary. We want to talk to as many people in the family who are the recipient of services, not just the people who are out there providing services.
Because sometimes the message is a little different when you talk to the people delivering a service as opposed to the people who are the ones accessing it or trying to access it, as the case may be. And we’ve done that since day one. It’s the priority of our itinerary is to hear our spouses and families and find out how we might be able to help them. One of the things that we were able to initiate when we were at PACAF was getting after the staffing issues they were having at the childcare centers is the first child free.
Because we thought, if you can make a dollar more at Target and you don’t have to change a poopy diaper, then you’re probably going to do that. But if you have a kid and now you can work at the CDC and your child goes free and they’re on the priority placement list, then maybe we’ve evened out that. And what more important job can you have than watching our babies? That has impacted staffing to a great extent. Of course, we still have a lot more work to do, but another thing that we’ve talked about as joint leadership spouses is what Purple Star schools mean. It means nothing because any state or district can define what it means.
And we have families who make decisions where to live based on a school having a Purple Star designation, but it doesn’t necessarily mean what you think it means, and I want it to mean what they think it means. So looking at, it is a state program, that’s the feedback we’re getting. People are like, “You can’t do it. It’s the state.” I’m saying that’s what this commission is for. It’s to do stuff that we’ve been told for years and years and years that we can’t do. If a school has a designation as a Purple Star school, military families should be confident that it means something.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Awesome. Cathy, anything to add?
Cathy Bentivegna:
Well, for me, when I visit different bases, Air Force, Space Force, I meet with younger spouse, senior spouses, usually for lunch because I like to eat. We sit down and ask them for challenges and best practices, but mainly I’m really interested in the best practices, what’s working right now. So I do have a Space Force contact card that they email me and they send me. They keep me updated and all the fabulous things that they’re doing on their basis, so I can pass it along. So that’s what I do. I’m just happy meeting all their spouses and families, giving them advice, and them giving me advice.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Great. Thank you. Okay. Well, we’re coming to the end of this session, so I’m going to close with a question for each of you, and I’m going to start with the Chief of Staff of the Air Force on this side. So for a young Airman, Guardian or spouse, just beginning this journey, what is the one piece of advice that you wish someone had given to you at your start? Chief?
Gen. Ken Wilsbach:
That’s really good. You know what I wish, and I know it’s not really advice, but wouldn’t it have been cool if when I was a lieutenant, somebody said, “Dude, you’re going to be the chief someday.” Because no one expects to be here, right? None of us up here ever thought we were ever going to be here. And if you knew ahead of time that maybe you were or you even had a chance, you would maybe have conducted yourself differently and spent your time.
Cindy Wilsbach:
Do you have something to tell me?
Gen. Ken Wilsbach:
No, no.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
That may be why some of us weren’t the chiefs.
Gen. Ken Wilsbach:
But I guess the point is is that take every opportunity that you have to better yourself as a professional warrior and as an officer or as an enlisted NCO, every opportunity that comes across, and don’t discount any of those opportunities to make you a better person in it. If you end up someday being on this stage or not, you’re not going to regret any of that.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
Right. Good advice.
Cindy Wilsbach:
I will say, I grew up and didn’t leave Florida until I was driving to Del Rio, Texas to go to pilot training with the certain fly boy here. And so, it was a completely new life for me, even though my dad was 38 years in the Guard, but we didn’t leave. So I had no idea what was ahead of me. And my advice to younger Cindy would be, you are so much stronger than you know. And you’re going to face the highest of highs in this life and the lowest of lows.
You will be alone a lot more than you thought you would be. And you will make some of the deepest friendships that you could imagine in your life and have the greatest opportunity to impact people and to pour yourself into others and service before self, and that don’t be fearful of what the future is, that you grow into your strength when you allow yourself to do that.
CMSAF David Wolfe:
I would certainly tell younger me a lot of things that we do not have enough time to go over because there’s so many things I wish I’d have known earlier. And frankly, I need to tell me, me now, on the day-to-day basis to remember to stay focused on the things that are important. But I think relationships is how I would describe it. So you’ve got a lot of relationships to manage in your life. And if you can get all of the distractions under control at a younger age, you’ll be a lot better off in the long run.
And I think our young people are still dealing with this in almost the exact same way with extra pressure, with video games and internet and all the things that are out there. Gambling online now. All these things that really weren’t a thing for us growing up. If you wanted to get in trouble on a Friday night, when I came into the Air Force, you better know where the trouble was happening before about 5:00 when everybody left their rooms, or you had to go hunt for them, right? Like physically go look for where the trouble was.
Now, you can get in trouble without having to do much work at all. So I’d say get your relationship under control with things like the gym, with food, with alcohol, with your finances, with money, all those things that are really the impactors of all the resiliency stuff that we talk about all the time. With school, with education, name it, there’s a bunch more things out there that our young people… The fundamentals matter. And it’s one of the reasons why I love working for General Wilsbach is the standards matter, and we have high standards for a reason.
And we can talk about innovation and compromise and doing things fast and changing and everything like that, really on everything except the standards we’ve already agreed upon. And you agreed upon those standards when you raised your right hand and came into our service. You joined us. And what a great message that is for young people that are looking for what we have. And we have something that’s incredibly special. And figuring that out at a younger age on how to follow those rules, I think I’d have been a lot better off. And the only other thing I would tell my younger self is just listen to whatever Doniel says every day, and you’ll be fine.
Dr. Doniel Wolfe:
I kind of feel like, Dave, there’s so many things I would tell my younger self. But I think the thing that has helped me the most is going to the gym. So I got to thank newly minted colonel from the Space Force spouse, Jenna Kovac, she’s in Colorado Springs right now, but personal trainer, military spouse, academy grad, and she changed my life. And now, I know when I’m sitting around and I’m kind of grumpy, and I’m thinking, “Okay, I haven’t worked out for two days.” It just puts me in a better mindset. It makes me a better person. It makes me a more helpful person.
And I wish somebody had told me what that does for all of you. It’s not just about feel and fit, or your body. It’s about your mind and your spirit and the way you present to the world. And it’s been a game changer for me. It’s helped me help others be a better person. And just get my head in the right place it needs to be to do this job and to be helpful to the people around me.
Gen. Doug Schiess:
Yeah. I would, of course, did not ever think I would be sitting on this stage. And so, I would tell myself what my first supervisor told me, First Lieutenant Jeff Harlan. I was an ICBM operator. And for those of you coming back in the SAC days, if you didn’t do that job well, then your Air Force career was pretty short at that time, or you found yourself somewhere else. But I remember our very first alert.
We were driving out two-hour drive in North Dakota, and he says, “Hey, before we get out to the site, you have to decide. You can never have your first alert over again. And you have to decide if you’re going to do this with integrity and do the right job, are you going to be a screw-up?” And he goes, “I’m now going to take a nap for two hours while we drive out to the site, and when we get there, we’ll talk about it.”
And so we got there, he’s like, “So what’s your answer?” And I said, “Well, it sounds like I should probably do the right thing.” And he said, “Okay, if you’re going to do that, then I’m going to mentor you, and I’m going to make sure that you do get the opportunities you need to excel.” And he did exactly that. And so, I would tell myself that. I would tell myself what First Lieutenant Jeff Harlan said.
And then I guess the second thing is we always talk about mission first, people always, and those kind of things. I would just say, if you take care of the people, they will take care of the mission. And Debbie and I have got to be in some just incredible sacred moments with families, whether that’s bad news or good news. And just being there with our family, because our family wasn’t with us, our family’s back at our home state that we came from.
But being there with our Air Force and Space Force family through those sacred moments, that’s just something I’ll never forget. And those people are impacted by you as a leader being there. And so, whether you’re a E1 or an O1, be there for the people that are around you because they need it.
Debbie Schiess:
Well, the first thing I would say is when he says five years, don’t believe him. But after that, one of the things that I wished I had grabbed a hold of earlier on is that this wasn’t just his service to our country, it’s our family’s service to our country. And it wasn’t until 9/11 hit that I think I had that wake up realization that we weren’t just following after him and his career, but this was our family service to our country.
And it changed how I talked to our kids. It changed the language we used every time a PCS came up to say, “Our country’s asking us to do this.” And it changed everything on outlook. It changed my ability to say, “Okay, I’m with you.” So I wish I had grabbed a hold of that a little earlier, but I’m glad it happened when it finally did because this has been an incredibly rewarding life as we have served our country together.
CMSSF John Bentivegna:
I think when I think about what I wish someone who have told me when I started this journey, besides take better care of my hair, would have been, really, it’s the importance of time. You have to really embrace the preciousness of time because you can’t get it back. Whether that be Chief Wolfe was talking about, what are you going to spend your time doing? Whether it be finances, education, family, relationships, but you can’t get time back.
When I look back, especially in the beginning of my career, I’ll focus on that my next assignment or the next rotation or the next deployment. I got plenty of time. Tell you what, 33 and a half years have gone by really fast. So just from the overall, knowing about my personal life, my professional life, is someone who sat me down and said, “You got to make sure that you account for how preciousness and fleeting time is. Don’t ever waste it.”
Cathy Bentivegna:
Well, speaking of time, time’s up. So I’m just going to say buckle up, enjoy the ride, have fun. It could be hard sometimes, but that’s how you learn. You learn from hard stuff, but just enjoy the ride, right? And make a difference to other people. Thank you.
Lt. Gen. Burt Field, USAF (Ret.):
All right. Okay. Let’s give them a big round of applause. Thank you.