Keynote Address—People and Purpose: The Foundation of Our Force

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This transcript was generated with the assistance of AI. Please report inconsistencies to comms@afa.org.

Video:

And it’s Weremsky. Now Jack Hughes puts it around the park. United States with numbers. Walk across, it comes. Jack Hughes wins it! The golden goal for the United States!

Audience:

USA! USA! USA!

Video:

For the first time since 1988! The new United States! Can you believe it? The United States!

CMSAF David Wolfe:

USA! USA! USA! Our beautiful partners from Kent, always the most polite people in the room. Everywhere they go. Thank you so much for being here. America, how about that golden goal? What made that win even more impressive is that on paper, Canada had more NHL superstars, more household names. They had a stacked roster. From the beginning, most assumed Canada was going to win. But championships aren’t decided on paper. Championships are decided on a thousand invisible mornings. Our boys didn’t rely on individual highlight reels. They relied on their training, on grit, on trust. Every player understood exactly what was required, and they executed it with discipline. That’s what happens when competence, commitment, and attitude align. Competence is the result of repetition, training, and education that gives you the skills to perform at the highest level. Commitment is the discipline to execute the plan, even when it’s hard. Even when you don’t want to. Even when you don’t feel like it. Attitude is deciding to win even before the situation gives you the perfect conditions. When those three things come together, the world’s assumptions don’t matter. Performance does. And when the moment came, when the world was watching, Team USA delivered. And I see that fighting spirit in this room here today. But instead of every four years, Airmen perform on the world stage every day. Speaking of being on the stage, this is my first AFA as the 21st Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, and I have many teammates to thank. Most of all, I’m super grateful to my beautiful wife, Donyell, who’s here with us today in the front row. Thank you for being the leader of this family and for everything that you do to allow me to continue to serve. And in the audience, some of the members of the Office of the Team, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, thank you so much for all of the work that you do every day to take care of us. Secretary Meink, Undersecretary Lohmeier, General Wilsbach, thank you. I could not be more confident than I am now with the leaders that we have at the stick leading our Air Force. To the Air and Space Forces Association, thank you for bringing us together. Your partnership is indispensable. And most importantly, to the Airmen that are here today, it’s an honor to serve alongside of you. Thank you for everything that you do. The game we saw on Sunday secured our first gold medal in men’s hockey since 1980, 46 years ago. Back then, America was a difficult place. The Cold War was raging, the economy was struggling, and our nation desperately needed something to believe in. Into that moment stepped a group of college kids with what seemed like an impossible task. Their opponent? The Soviet national team, the Red Machine, a hockey dynasty of professionals who had dominated for decades. Our team? Amateurs. The gap felt insurmountable. Just weeks before the Olympics, the Soviets beat us 10-3. Everyone said we didn’t stand a chance. And then, the impossible happened. We won. The world called it a miracle on ice, and it became an iconic moment that was later memorialized in the 2004 film, Miracle. But I wouldn’t call it a miracle. It was the result of three things– competence, commitment, and attitude– are what fueled the performance that transformed underdogs into gold medalists back in 1980 and again on Sunday. But do you know who was never considered the underdog? The 2026 U.S. women’s hockey team. You can stand up and clap again if you want, sir. It’s fine. The world knew all along they were destined for gold, and they proved it just days before our men’s team. And just like them, the world knows our United States Air Force is a gold medal team. And that’s because of you, our Airmen. You were asked to do what others would call impossible every single day. But instead of hoping for miracles, you deliver them. You are part of a system designed for victory, and you choose to be ready every day. That system, that ability to deliver on demand, isn’t a fluke. It’s the result of a formula– competence plus commitment multiplied by attitude equals performance. As Airmen, our performance is measured by how well we achieve the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s priorities– readiness, modernization, and Airmen and families. These aren’t just words. They are the fundamental why behind everything we do. Readiness is what our nation expects from us. If the call comes tonight, we will go to war with the Airmen, equipment, and capabilities we have now, not with what we hope to have in five years. Readiness is a team sport. Every Airman must do their part. It’s technical skill, financial stability, spiritual and physical strength, and the mental toughness to handle the weight of what we ask you to do. While readiness secures the present, modernization is our commitment to winning tomorrow. Our adversaries are working around the clock to close the gap. If deterrence fails, it’s our job to ensure it’s not a fair fight, but a decisive win. We’re harnessing new technologies and new ways of thinking so they never catch up. It’s the key reason why we created the Office of the Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force AI Action Team. We are bringing together the best Airmen our force has to offer, and we are putting them to work. We are asking them to tackle challenges using AI to help free up our warfighters to focus on the mission. This action team is one of the many examples of our commitment to Airmen. As Secretary Meink said on Monday, the Air Force is working to speed up how we acquire new technology so Airmen get the best tools before they become obsolete. And the final priority, the one that holds it all together, is our Airmen and families. A modernized force is useless without a ready force, and a ready force is impossible unless we care for those who make it all happen– the Airmen who make the miracle a reality and the people who support them. I believe in our system, our Airmen, and the leaders who have come before us. In the Air Force, we recruit Airmen, but we retain a critical support system–families. Some of us came in with a family. Some of us built a family. Some of us found a family. But all of us joined this family. For every Airman holding the line, there’s a support system holding down the home front. Service before self isn’t an abstract value. It’s a series of concrete, life-altering sacrifices. Instability in our military families isn’t a soft issue. It’s a direct challenge to our national security, and we will treat it with the seriousness it deserves. Readiness, modernization, Airmen, and families are the foundation upon which the formula is built. It starts with competence. In modern warfare, competence goes just beyond knowing your job. Think of Airmen like our maintainers, loadmasters, flight engineers conducting a preflight. They perform the same walkaround every single time. They check the same panels, touch the same points, and follow the same technical orders step by step, day in, day out. Because that repetitive checklist isn’t a chore, it’s a weapon. It frees their mind to troubleshoot an unexpected hydraulic leak or to catch the subtle sign of stress on a part they could otherwise miss. They master the machine so they can own the mission. From basic Air Force standards to complex technical orders, our procedures are the architecture of victory. To our industry partners in the audience and on the other side of this wall, we need your help. Our Airmen must be focused on finding a way to beat our adversary, not fighting clunky software. Give us systems that are invisible and tools that automate the kill chain from end to end. Eliminate the cognitive friction that pulls our people away from the fight. You can know how to do something, but only you can guarantee that you’ll do it right every single time. If competence is what you know, commitment is how much you care. Commitment is built on a powerful paradox. Discipline equals freedom. Every time you repeat an action, you are casting a vote for the type of person you want to be. Disciplined Airmen are not constrained by standards. They are fueled by them. They push for one more rep on the PT test when their body is screaming. They follow a technical order to the letter when no one is watching. And their disciplined warfighter mindset earns the trust of their team, telling everyone, “I’ve got your back.” Commitment to excellence separates contenders from champions. We saw this on the world stage from our own Airmen. Staff Sergeant Kelly Curtis in Skeleton, Senior Airman Jasmine Jones in Bobsled. Same challenge, a dangerous high-speed course where the margin for error is measured in fractions of a second. What you didn’t see on Metal Day were the crashes. Both endured multiple wipeouts on the road to the Olympics. But that level of commitment changes how you see it. Wipeouts weren’t failures. They were data. Each crash revealed something. Each run refined the next. That’s the brutal, necessary feedback required to find the winning edge. And that’s what commitment looks like. And that’s how trust is built. But that level of trust doesn’t always emerge on its own. Sometimes it has to be deliberately forged, especially when your team starts off as enemies. In the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, it was a collection of bitter rivals. Coach Brooks knew he had to break their individual loyalties to build into something stronger. He skated them until they were exhausted, drained, and worn down. In that shared crucible, old rivalries died and a new team was born. They finally understood what Brooks meant when he said, “The name on the front of the jersey is a heck of a lot more important than the one on the back.” That is the essence of how we build Airmen. From our recruiters finding the right people to our military training instructors building them from the ground up, we take everyday civilians, break down individual loyalties, and mold them into a gold-medal team. The name on our uniform is U.S. Air Force. This is our commitment. We owe it to them, and we owe it to the mission. So you have competence, you have commitment, but to truly unlock elite performance, we need the final piece of the formula, the multiplier, attitude. It’s not just skill. It’s having a winning attitude that thrives on momentum and survives on grit. Setbacks are guaranteed. Failure is part of the process. The disciplined ones don’t ignore setbacks. They reframe them. A winning attitude refuses to amplify negativity and instead chooses to be a source of relentless, positive resolve. When all of those converge, you and your team perform with the attitude needed to win. That is the winning mindset we need in every corner of our Air Force. That choice, that relentless winning attitude, is what turns competence and commitment into an unbreakable force. It refuses to take no for an answer. In a world of “we can’t,” it asks, “how can we?” In a world of “it’s not possible,” a winning attitude says, “watch us.” The first no is simply the start of the conversation. We have to accept a fundamental truth. If you aren’t under pressure, you aren’t pushing your limits. You aren’t growing. Consider what the U.S. men just did to earn that gold. They stepped into overtime carrying 46 years of history, and they didn’t blink. They didn’t see the pressure as a burden. They saw it as the moment to finish the job. That’s the mindset we need right now. The challenges we face are immense. The stakes are high, and that is our great opportunity. Competence plus commitment multiplied by attitude equals performance. This isn’t just a phrase to remember. It’s a living formula and a direct call to action for every one of us. Airmen, I challenge you to master your craft. Live with a deep commitment to your teammates and the standards that bind us. Every single morning, choose your attitude. Decide to be a problem solver. Decide to find a way to win. Remember, your rank is your role, not your value. The standard you set for yourself is your true measure. The relationships you build and the people you positively impact is a victory no promotion can give you and no one can take away from you. Leaders, your job is to create the environment where this formula ignites. Provide the tools for competence. Model an unwavering commitment to our people and foster a relentless winning attitude. When your Airmen embody the formula, trust them. The world called it a miracle on ice. It wasn’t. It was competence forged in practice. It was commitment to a team and a nation. And it was an unbreakable attitude that refused to lose. Our miracles don’t happen on the ice. They happen in the quiet hum of a server room. They happen in the dark of night over a hostile land. And they happen on the home front where military spouses hold it all together. Our Airmen may not wear gold medals, but these are gold medal performances delivered by the greatest Air Force the world has ever known. So to every member of our Air Force family, my message is the same as the one Herb Brooks delivered 46 years ago. You were meant to be here tonight. This is your time. So go out there and take it. Airmen, this is our time. Airmen and Guardians, please stay put.

Voiceover:

The Q&A will follow in just a moment. We’re going to change the stage. If you would like to ask a question, there are mic stands in the center of the room on either side of the camera stand. Please line up there. And Chief Wolfe will be back in just a moment. Airmen and Guardians, please go to the microphones to prepare to ask a question. And here is your Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, David Wolfe.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Hey, thanks, everybody. I’m really excited to get to your questions, and the first thing I wanted to do is let you meet my better half and the reason that I get to still serve. So everybody, this is one of the most dedicated military spouses you’re ever going to meet. She cares about you sometimes more than some other people I think do, right? So she really cares about you. She really cares about your families. She really cares about your kids and your access to health care and, like, all of the things that you guys are worried about, she’s worried about those things too. She’s an advocate for you, so if I don’t shut up, I’m going to get in a lot of trouble. But everybody, Danielle Wolfe. All right, and I got to do one more thing before we start. Hey, folks, like, our Canadian partners, that was not planned. A lot of that was planned. I got to come over here and say thank you, sir. Yeah, absolutely, man. You just, like, made the whole thing. That was awesome. Okay. All right. What do we got? Somebody’s at the microphone already. Okay. Oh, we got–okay, right over here. Let’s start on the left.

Audience:

Good afternoon, Chief. How are you doing? Great. All right, I am Staff Sergeant Kelly of Malmstrom Air Force Base. So my major question was I work on the ICBM Minutemen III system, and I know we are moving to Sentinel, but walking around and going through all these vendors, my major concern was until Sentinel fully becomes online, is there a system or a program that we can talk to with these vendors in order to create a new supply chain to replace all of these old parts that are breaking down and the manufacturers are no longer in service?

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Yeah. Hey, thank you for that question, and thanks for serving at one of our Northern Tier bases. I started off at a Northern Tier base, too. It was like the foundation of my entire career was built in–I was in SAC for like 10 minutes. It was pretty awesome. So I really appreciate what you’re doing out there. The problem that you’re describing unfortunately doesn’t just exist in the Sentinel program and in the legacy systems that we’re trying to replace, right? This problem exists everywhere, and it’s part of the reason why your Chief of Staff, your Secretary, your Undersecretary, all the folks that are leading behind the glass doors in the Pentagon have made a full commitment to the accounts that need to be funded to recapitalize the stuff we have now. The stuff that we have in the future is super important, but it doesn’t matter if the stuff that we have right now isn’t giving us what we need. As far as the specifics, you are so lucky because down here, sitting in the front row, is the commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, General S.L. Davis. So I would love it if you would bum-rush him at the end of this, and he will tell you the answer to that question.

Audience:

Got it, Chief.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

There you go. All right. Thank you, sir. Look at that.

Audience:

Appreciate it.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Bam. Okay, let’s go over here.

Audience:

Good afternoon, Chief Fulke. Can you hear me?

CMSAF David Wolfe:

I can hear you loud and clear.

Audience:

My name is Adam Azar. I’m from the 38th Rescue Squadron at Moody Air Force Base, and I wanted to ask you a question on behalf of my brothers and sisters in AFSPEC War because I feel like we’re one of the most underrepresented folks here at the AFA Conference. When it comes to personnel recovery, global access, persistent strike, and special reconnaissance, there’s been rumors of a lot of changes coming, a few of them have stuck. I’m curious, with this topic of force modernization and from your seat, Chief, what do you see coming and how can we help you get after those efforts?

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Yeah, I’m very familiar with what you’re talking about, and we could probably get into a lot of detailed, dramatic things that have been talked about over the last few years. What I can tell you is that your function within our United States Air Force is–it’s critical. And if you think that we’re just going to abandon our responsibilities to take care of our Airmen when they need to be picked up or need some type of medical help because they’ve been injured on the battlefield, that’s crazy talk, right? We are not going to abandon that responsibility. So as far as how the details are going to play out, I think there’s still a few decisions that have to be made. I know that when General Lislebot got in the seat, he wanted to take a look at the full spectrum of the decisions, and I don’t think that’s all come back to him yet for a final decision. There’s probably some folks in the room here that could help us with that. I saw General Nimai over here. Did I see General Nimai? Maybe he’s not here, but if you shoot me a note, I’ll get you connected with the folks. You can get the latest of what’s going to be briefed to the boss.

Audience:

Thanks, Chief.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

All right. Thanks for the question. I appreciate it. Over here.

Audience:

Good afternoon, Chief. My name is Senior Airman Scherr. I am also from Malmstrom Air Force Base, Missile Maintenance. I wanted to ask because we’ve been hearing a lot about artificial intelligence being utilized within the force more and more. A lot of the panels while I was here were focused on more of the warfighting aspect of that. Where on the list of priorities is using artificial intelligence in the basis of maintenance?

CMSAF David Wolfe:

I think it’s huge. I think it’s at the top of the list. Again, we’ve got a lot of legacy systems that putting AI on top of those doesn’t work because the data that’s underneath those systems isn’t ready for the new technology. There are some hopeful technologies that are out there that can kind of reverse engineer that for us, and we’re looking at all of those. You’re absolutely right. We don’t–we got any maintainers in the room? There’s a few because the rest of them are at work for sure. I mean, this is one of our most highly stressed career fields, and I’m super concerned about that. I’m super concerned about shift workers in general. There’s a lot more work to be done than we have manpower to do it. We have to harness AI to try to get after these actions, try to make it so maybe we don’t do that maintenance action because we’ve got some algorithms and some data that tells us through AI that, “Hey, that’s probably what the TO says, and that’s probably what the big prime contractor wanted you to do to keep the machine running, but it’s probably not necessary now based on these other factors that weren’t considered when we built the contract and we built the TOs that are out there, right?” So, yeah, I think it is. And if you’ve got ideas–usually people don’t ask me questions without some type of an agenda, so if you’ve got ideas, I want you to come and see my team afterwards, and we can talk about the AI action team that we’re doing and what you’re thinking in that space where we could make some strides.

Audience:

Absolutely. Thank you, sir.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Sound good? All right. Great. Okay, over here.

Audience:

Good afternoon, Chief Wolfe. My name is Lieutenant DeVilliers. I’m with the 26th Network Operations Squadron over at Gunner. And my question is in the vein of modernization, Airmen and families, and then our acquisitions reform, where do we stand with lines of efforts for modernizing and improving our base facilities, our dorms, our gyms, and everything that takes care of our Airmen because I feel there’s a big disparity between the technology that we see in the air versus the infrastructure we have at home.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Yeah, absolutely. Ma’am, thank you so much for that question. You’re absolutely right. There are significant gaps in what we want to provide for our Airmen and what our Airmen have earned and what we are providing for them specifically. I’ll add to your list, right, housing, just the facility you have to work in, right, let alone the place that you have to live. We’ve got unsafe facilities that we have to close down, and then we don’t get the MilCon to fix them later on. What I’m hoping is going to happen, right, there’s some significant drumbeat on budget increase. We’ve got to take that with what the reality is. The reality is we have massive bills to pay, right? The first question on Sentinel, largest public works project, whatever you want to call it, in the history of the world, like nothing has ever been more expensive than what we’re about to do with what we’re doing already with Sentinel, right? So we’ve got some huge bills to pay, and some of that budget increase is going to go to get us that capability that we need because the things that we want to buy aren’t yet totally funded throughout all the out years, right? But I’m really hopeful that we can have a lot of conversations and fund a lot of these dorm projects and housing projects that we have been kicking the can down the road on for a number of years. We are making right now a $1.2 billion investment in dormitories. That sounds like a lot of money. It’s a nice start, right, as far as we’re concerned. It is not nearly what we need long term. We’re also looking at different ways of doing business, right? Some places you go to, and depending on where you’re stationed, it makes sense that probably everybody for their first couple of years, we want them to be in the dorm because of the conditions that exist in the local community, right? And some of that might be crime-related or just availability of good housing or whatever. It varies by location. And then there’s probably some other locations where, hey, after we’ve figured out if you’re responsible and can pay your bills and know how to get the gas turned on, like, you could probably go live downtown, right? And that would be great. We can give you your BAH and you can go. BAH is another question, though. People are asking a lot about that. There is a study going on right now at the Department of War level. We’re waiting for the results of that study. I am skeptical on what that study might find. Sometimes we study something and we find things that we don’t like, and the result is a negative. So I’m going to be really, really engaged on what that looks like and how we make sure it doesn’t have any kind of negative impact and, in fact, helps you guys. So lots of discussion in this department. We’ve got, again, great SAFIE. I don’t know if Mr. Borders is here, but it’s just some great Americans that totally understand these problems from day one. They know what’s going on and they’re trying to help us solve those problems. So thank you for the question.

Audience:

Thank you, Chief.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

All right.

Audience:

Good afternoon, Chief Wolfe. I’m Cadet Krebs of Det 860, and I was wondering what advice do you have to cadets?

CMSAF David Wolfe:

What? Oh, that’s a big, wide-open question. You said you’re what class?

Audience:

I just said I’m from Det 860.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Okay. All right. And when are you going to graduate?

Audience:

I’m going to graduate in May of 2028.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

May of 2028. Okay. So my first advice is get really good grades and stay in school. That’s my first advice. We need you. We need you in 2028 to assess in. I guess the standard answer from if you ask that question to a senior enlisted person is going to be as follows. When you get to your unit, find a really good senior NCO. You’ve heard this before, right? Awesome advice, really. I mean, it’s the best, right? Find the people that are experienced. But really, this is about like what I said in my comments up front, folks. The basics matter. The basics matter because when you’re doing the basics as a habit all of the time, then your mind is freed to work on the hard stuff. And guess what? When you’re doing the basics right, the minds of all the people around you don’t have to say, “Hey, man, why aren’t you doing the basics right?” And we can talk about other things, right? So there’s a tendency, I think, for some people to say, “Well, then we’ll just ignore those basics. Like who cares about that stuff? That doesn’t matter.” But that’s not the system we have, and it doesn’t lead to good results if you let that be your approach from the beginning. So, sir, thanks for coming into the Air Force. Thanks for wanting to be — you said Det from what school?

Audience:

Det 860, Utah State.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Utah State. All right, good deal. All right, that’s great. Hey, thanks for being a member of the team. And, you know, get those basics down right, and we’ll be ready to take you in in a couple of years for sure. Thank you. All right.

Audience:

Good afternoon, Chief. My name is Master Sergeant Dillon King. I’m a Headquarters PACAF A4, so POL is my trade, POL Troop. Everyone’s mentioned our mission so much, we feel special here at AFA, right? The pacing thread is what everybody tends to care about for good reasons. One thing that I’ve found, and I’m curious on your perspective with your background in the PACAF theater, we tend to, as an Air Force, want to take control and do the things that we know because we have competence in what we do. And as I’m seeing from staff, we have a heavy reliance on commercial and the joint environment more so than I’ve ever imagined prior to coming here. What are some things that we can do or share from your perspective to get after the true joint training, to show what Title X responsibilities actually look like, especially with the hub and spoke and ACE concept?

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for that question. Teed it up for me pretty nice. Now I got to dust my PACAF brain off real quick, right? But your PACAF leadership is up here in the first couple of rows as well, which is great. I’m not going to kick the question to Katie, but she could totally answer it very well, probably with more today information than I could. I’ll address the first part of your question I want to talk about is the joint part of it, right? So probably as recently as maybe, I don’t know, seven or eight years ago in PACAF, this is how exercises would go. There would be something that happens, and then there would be a briefing about it afterwards. And like the commanders from the Navy and the Marine Corps and the Army and the Air Force would be like briefing the Indo-Pecan commander. And they’d be like, “Hey, you were in the Philippines? Hey, we were in the Philippines. Man, look how joint we are.” Right? That’s kind of how it went. There was not like this deliberate plan for us to go places and operate from the same location with shared objectives to reach for the training and the messaging and all the things that we want to do when we go exercise. So that has been, I think, I wouldn’t call it like check or done by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s very different now. It’s very different now because what happens now is there’s a supported commander and that responsibility kind of rotates. And that supported commander is the coordinator of all of those efforts. And it’s not the Indo-Pecan commander can’t do that. They’ve got a lot of stuff to do. So they delegate that authority to one of the other commanders and they kind of synchronize what’s happening across the theater. Now, we still have a lot of work to do, like I said, right? There’s not enough room in a lot of these places for everybody to go operate, right? We end up putting multiple things on locations and then we realize that that’s not supportable. You know, we can’t do that. But certainly we’ve got a very obvious responsibility to do this, not just jointly, but with our international partners. All right. And there is huge strides that are being made in all lanes to make sure that our friends have capabilities and that we can work towards being not interoperable, but interchangeable over time. We’re still we’ve got a long ways to go, but absolutely the theater is still at the top of the list. Obviously, the National Defense Strategy had a little bit different twist on that. I think Chief McCool and her panel this morning put it very, very, very well that we’ve gone from we’re trying to go away from maybe antagonizing China to, you know, just kind of letting them know, hey, we’re ready for you. If you want to fight, you probably don’t. And, you know, but we’re not walking away from that as a mission at all whatsoever. That is still the pacing challenge we’ve got. We could talk about your question had like nine questions in it, I know, but that’s good. Hope that gets at it. Yeah, thank you. Over here.

Audience:

Good afternoon, Chief. I’m Senior Airman Dobbins from the 647 CES on Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam. All right. My question for you is we have talked so much about modernization while we’ve been here and something that really hasn’t been touched on is something that everyone actually uses in a wartime environment. That might be mop gear. We haven’t had a modernization of mop gear since 1966 or 1996, excuse me. So coming on over 30 years for modernization for Seabourn. And I’m just wondering if there’s any plans in place for our crew.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Yeah, I am actually under the impression that I’m going to start by saying I’ve got to get back to you on this one for sure. I’m under the impression that there is a modernization. Do we have any of the Seabourn leadership in the room? No? They’re all working on the Seabourn gear modernization project? Yeah, I think they do. Now, absolutely critical, something that you hope you never need, right? But if you do, it’s the most important gear you’ve got, right? For sure. So please get with my team. I think Kate’s right behind you there. She can take your question. And we’re going to get I got to get you a better answer on that. I have not gotten an update specifically on that recently. But certainly that’s a great question.

Audience:

Thank you, Chief.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

All right.

Audience:

How you doing, Chief? Tech Sergeant Edwards, 316 Security Forces Group, standing by NCRC at Joint Base Andrews. The biggest question for the defenders taking on a lot of missions right now, getting to the drone space, different protections, officer locations. My concern is just to figure out the true readiness of getting everything done in garrison to deploy those locations. So is there any type of conversation, emphasis on DAF officers being more employed within those LE positions or even go to that mission capable mission ready to get those augmentees to potentially assist with helping that in garrison to better prepare for our defenders to go overseas and put planes up in those officer locations?

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Yeah, absolutely. And you can imagine your so your career field manager, Chief Donnie Gallagher, is a good friend of mine. You can imagine he doesn’t want me to be the career field manager while I’m staying on the stage. Right. So I’ll try not to do that. But there are the answer to your question is yes. All right. When you specifically when you talked about the drone issue, folks, this is a huge concern. Right. This is, you know, probably if I could like rack and stack the things that General Wills box most worried about, this would absolutely be in the top of the list for sure. We’ve got to figure out this. And this is not a defender problem to solve. Like overall, you’re part of the solution for sure and need to be in the mix on defending the base. But we need people who know how to deconflict airspace. We need people. We need com. We need cyber. You know, there’s a there’s a this is a multi AFSC problem. We haven’t figured it out yet. We’ve got some tests going on at some units. I know Ramstein’s testing some stuff. Langley has some. And I’m talking about not not like just testing a system. I’m talking about testing the actual construct and the how what the unit of action is going to look like to defend the base, you know, based on the threat and what we have the capability to do. You guys are going to be part of that for sure. Moving forward. As far as moving from this has been the great debate for my entire career. Like who should the gate guards be is basically the thing. Right. And who should do law enforcement. Who should do security. You got to talk to Chief Gallagher about that. I know he’s working on some things, but him and General Filler, they’re absolutely daily aware of this of this issue and, you know, kind of the tension that exists between taking folks downrange and doing that home station mission. Thank you. You got it. Nobody over there. Next over here.

Audience:

Good afternoon, Chief Cadet Given. Det 085 UC Berkeley, California. You have to forgive me. I’m a little nervous. A lot of eyes on me.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Welcome to the club.

Audience:

What was that, sir?

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Welcome to the club.

Audience:

Thank you. Yeah. My question. So then I’ve actually been thinking about today, which is how do I instill intrinsic motivation into a team? And then do you have any examples of that from your own life when maybe it’s gone well or maybe it’s gone poorly?

CMSAF David Wolfe:

You said intrinsic motivation?

Audience:

Yes, sir.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

So define that for me. It’s a big word. I think I know what it means. But like what what do you mean by it?

Audience:

So as someone like yourself, right, who stayed in the service for so long, I’m assuming you have some kind of intrinsic motivation that’s kept you right. That’s kept you so long, right?

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. I’m old. That’s correct. Yeah.

Audience:

Yeah. I hope my question makes sense.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Yeah, I think it does. Expanding upon it. You know, I kind of see where you’re going. I don’t think that there is some kind of magic thing that happens that makes it so you’re just going to be on this glide path. You know, that’s perfect all the time and everything’s, you know, life looks a lot more like the stock market. Right. I mean, in your career, I think looks a lot more like the stock market. There’s been times, you know, for example, like after a deployment where I was like, man, I’m done. Right. Like I had no gas left in the tank. What am I doing? That was really hard. And then I usually just deployment like it’s weird after a little while. You’re like, I think I wanted to go deploy again. Right. Like it kind of wears off, you know, and you want to go do it again, even after after you said never again. Do I want to do that? So I think it’s a lot more about surrounding yourself with the right people. Right. I tell the story about what you know, when why did I decide to reenlist the first time I was talking to my wife and I was like, hey, let’s I’m going to get out. I’ve got family in the corrections in Michigan, not like inmates, but people that like ran the corrections. Maybe we did have some inmates, but, you know, I was like, I can go work in the prison in Michigan and have a great career. Like, let’s go back and go there. And she goes, you’re staying in the Air Force. Like that was the end of the conversation about that was your intrinsic motivation. A lot of my intrinsic intrinsic motivation comes from, you know, making sure that the person in the front row up here is super happy. So, you know, it’s about decisions, really, I think setting conditions for people where they can have like two two things, I think I’ll give you number one. People want to know that they can do the things that they like to do. You know. Every once in a while, like like people that are stationed in Colorado, I hope you want to go ski. Right. Like that’s probably an awesome thing to go do. Right. Like if I make it so you can never go do the things that you want to do because the mission is so heavy on you all the time. Well, you’re probably going to make a decision. And then I think the other thing we do is we should create conditions where, generally speaking, the good deals and the bad deals are kind of, you know, as much as we can, like evenly distributed. Like I think most people that wear this uniform, they know they’re going to have to take a bad deal. Like eventually you’re going to get a short notice tasking. They’re going to your boss is going to come in at five o’clock and be like, we got to do this task or that just came down from the MAJCOM and, you know, it’s due tomorrow and they didn’t tell us. And now I got to stay till seven o’clock at night like people do that. But if it’s you every time staying until seven or eight o’clock after a while, people are going to be like, man, that’s this is not for me. Right. So spread the good deals and the bad deals, the training opportunities, the deployments. Right. There are some deployments that are less desirable than other deployments. If you have the opportunity to kind of let people every once in a while have a good one. Right. That’s probably going to keep them motivated over time. So and, you know, it’s not about motivation. If you’re waiting to be motivated to do everything like you’re probably going to be disappointed. Right. I’m sorry. Like motivation comes and goes. What can stay all the time is you making a decision every day. Right. If you if you’re waiting for motivation to go to the gym. Probably not coming. Right. You can have discipline to go, though. You can say no matter what’s going on, I got to do this four or five days a week to make sure that you can have that discipline. So developing the ability to tell that that devil on your shoulder. Uh uh. Not today. I’m going to get out of bed and go do it. That’s that’s what, you know, builds that intrinsic motivation over time. It’s habits.

Audience:

Thank you. May I ask a follow up question? I don’t think I’m ever going to have this opportunity again.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Go ahead.

Audience:

Thank you. Are there other things that you see lieutenants don’t leverage in terms of opportunities with their team or even just as like individuals?

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Nothing really pops into my head with that. I mean, it’s the air. You know, generally speaking, I guess our our our young folks that are, you know, that your first couple of years in the Air Force, you know, you’re trying to figure out, you know, what’s out there. What I will tell you is there’s probably way more opportunities than you can see from where you are. Right. And I think folks just think that, OK, well, just whatever has been given to me. This is it. Right. And if you start to ask a lot of questions and you start to network and you start to meet a lot of people, you will find out that, oh, my gosh, look at all the stuff the Air Force has to offer, like the leaders in the room. Like this is a pretty awesome organization, isn’t it? Like, have you been given opportunities that you were like, I didn’t even know we had that as a thing. Right. I didn’t even know we could do that. But somebody you went talk to someone, they told you about it. You went and investigated it. And now you’re you’re doing something. So I guess that’d probably be the answer to your question is like, open your eyes and and network with people and find out what’s going on in different areas of the Air Force. And you’ll be you’ll be extremely surprised and elated at what you see.

Audience:

Thank you so much, Chief.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

You got it.

Audience:

Hey, Chief, how’s it going?

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Good. How are you?

Audience:

Good. Chief Master Sergeant Anthony Dupio from the 9/12th ARS stationed at March Air Reserve Base. All right. So we belong to a small active duty unit on a reserve base. My question pertains to assignment incentive pay. I know the specifics, meaning it usually entails the inability to fill billets. Yeah. However, I would like to get your thoughts on possibly adding to or maybe rewriting those specifications or requirements to include higher cost of living areas where we don’t have the support as a normal active duty base would being a BX. We don’t have a gas station. We don’t have a hospital on base and we don’t have any base housing. So our Airmen are, you know, obviously they don’t live on base. They have to find places off base, further off base. Further off base means cheaper. But also just living in SoCal can be very, very expensive. We have tried to implement PPCs to maybe restrict first term Airmen coming to March Air Reserve Base because of the higher cost of living. But I just wanted to get your thoughts on maybe rewriting or adding to assignment incentive pay requirements.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Yes. My thoughts are very, very much in line. Yes, we need to get new authorities to be able to account for these types of situations. Every time we’ve sent assignment, the bad word in the middle of there is incentive. Right. I don’t have a problem getting people to a certain location. People will volunteer to go there. And that’s kind of the litmus test based on the law that the policy is written from. So there is an effort right now underway to surface all those places and to figure out what we need to ask for through our great partners here at AFA and other entities that can get us the authorities and different capability to do that. And it’s not going to be that’s not I acknowledge a satisfying right now answer because I don’t think it’s going to do anything in the in the very near term. But this is absolutely something that we have to do. Our folks can’t be asked to live in places where it’s impossible for them to make ends meet. So we’re absolutely in on this. In fact, is ACC command chief Jeremy. Are you in the audience? Yeah. So right here, Jeremy Hunter Sear and I talked about this this morning on that exact topic. And he’s got kind of a he’s going to go speak on my behalf on this with some folks that can try to do something about it. So if you want to hear more about March, Jeremy, and if you want to give him some of your some of your vignettes, would love to see him.

Audience:

Thanks, Chief.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

You got it.

Audience:

Good afternoon, Chief. Chief DJ Hood from the 48th Fighter Wing out of a raft Lake and he got a quick question for you. So all this week we’ve heard about modernizing the aircraft and we need to build a modernized so we can be ready. However, something that has not come up is modernizing the support equipment that goes with it. So what I mean by that is we’re facing the Asian vehicle fleet where service life is 20 years, but we utilize a vehicle that 30, 40 years. Right. Asian are living the Asian age fleet. Right. So how are we going to modernize the support equipment side of it to make sure that we still sustain the aircraft?

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Yeah. Great question. Thank you for that. And you are you’re absolutely correct. And we are 100 percent. That is part of this weapon system sustainment. And trying to put lots of money back into those accounts that we have made decisions in the past to do. We’ve made other decisions with that money and have have underfunded those accounts over a pretty long period of time. So fingers crossed, folks, that the budget that’s being discussed, you know, in some form or fashion comes to fruition and we’re able to get you those. We’re tracking all of those those type, especially our fuel trucks, like all the things that are out there that we need in places where we’ve got to do snow removal. We’ve got shortages. I mean, go to the Pacific and look at what’s on Guam and Kadena. Like we’ve got huge problems there. We’ve got we’ve got a lot of bills to pay, but that’s certainly on the list. Thanks for that question.

Audience:

CMSAF, I thank you for this opportunity, I’m a sergeant, half a Martinez senior listed advisor to the CAG at U.S. Space Command. In my role, I’ve been fortunate to gain insight into the very real threats posed by CCP, Russia, Iraq, DPRK and others. However, many Airmen, Guardians and civilians often hear far more about the growing threats arrayed against us than about our ability to win. I often hear the phrase conceal the win. So my question is, how do we balance protecting sensitive capabilities with the responsibility to instill confidence across the force, the DoD and the nation specifically? How do we communicate that the threat is real and serious without creating fatalism and instead reinforce and influence that we can and will win?

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Man, did we just teleport to like Air War College or something like that? Like that’s a pretty complicated question. That’s a great question. I’m really glad that you’re thinking on that level. So, and really says a lot about where our senior NCO corps is at, doesn’t it folks? I mean, this is who we’ve got to lead us into the future, which is amazing. So there is a tension here, right? Do we want our competitors to know what we can do and when do we want them to know it? Can we keep them from knowing it? That’s another question, right? It’s becoming more and more difficult with the proliferation of new capabilities for other countries as well for us to hide what we’re doing, right? When our aircraft take off, it’s pretty easy to figure out that they’ve done that, right? And we’ve got in this country and outside this country, there’s like aircraft spotters. That’s like a hobby now, right? And they just put up that, you know, five F-35s just took off from Iwakuni, Japan, right? So and then we’ve got to, you know, the adversaries we have over there, possible adversaries are tracking that stuff. So we’ve definitely got to have attention there. This is what I would ask you to do as far as like I get this question a lot, like how are we going to influence the greater American population to understand this stuff? Man, bro, I wouldn’t be I would be in some other like I’d be I’d be working in the White House, I think, if I could figure that out, right? Like that that’s a huge thing to be able to influence the entire population. This is what I want from our folks. Get into the SCIF with our intel folks and have them brief you on what it is that we’re facing, right? And I’m sure you’re getting an opportunity to do this in your position. But for the rest of the folks in the audience, if you haven’t had a classified intel briefing on what the challenges are that we’re facing in a while, go do that, right? And get just regular updates on what’s happening there. It’s even more important for our folks that might not be right at the forward edge of what’s going on, right? Our folks that are doing our support functions have got to be able to understand what the bigger picture looks like. And then, hey, folks, based on what you know about what’s happening, not in the not don’t take the classified stuff out of the SCIF, but talk to your families, talk to your friends. People don’t generally understand the complicated threats that we could be facing in the future and the ones that we’re facing now. The one thing I would tell you to for sure talk to your family about is we talk about this future fight thing, right? Folks, the fight is now. The fight is happening in cyber. The fight is happening in your command in space, right? There are things going on that look a lot like people want to hurt us, right? And they want to take away our capabilities. So this idea that we’re getting ready for some future thing, yeah, that’s true in kind of a global all out conflict type context. But every day that’s happening and the place that it’s happening that affects the American people the most is in the information space. All right, folks, the stuff that you see on the Internet, unless it comes from my page, might not be true. OK. All right. So, you know, like help people understand that, like people like to get real spun up about all the things. And I’m not saying we don’t have problems. All right. We got problems like every other country. It’s you get a few humans together. You’re going to have some issues. Right. That’s how it works. But certainly our adversaries would have everyone believe that we are eating ourselves from the inside. And, folks, that’s what they want. They want that. They want us to make it so they never have to fire a shot. And we’ve got to educate the public on that to make sure that we don’t buy into this narrative that they’re trying to push. Thanks for what you’re doing at Space Command

Audience:

Thank you, Chief.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

I might have only time for one more. Maybe maybe the last two right here, I think, is what we’ll do.

Audience:

Good evening, Chief. I’m Master Sergeant Kyle Mills from 313th over at McChord. Before I get started and ask my question, I want to say thank you. Congrats on a new position. I just got back from an all expense paid vacation to the Middle East. So very happy to be back.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Welcome back.

Audience:

But thank you for bringing back the duty patches. I can tell a lot of people in this room are very happy with that. Everybody’s very proud of their positions. So huge thank you on that.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

You’re welcome.

Audience:

Also to everybody in this room, I want to say thank you so much for what you do for this mission. I watch a lot of these videos and it’s just a lot of airplanes. And I want to know every single person in this room contributes to those planes, whether your security forces, aerial port, FSS, maintenance, medical. I can go more and more every single job in the career field. But I just want to say a huge thank you from everybody in this room.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Yeah, ditto. Absolutely.

Audience:

So with that being said, we’ve had a lot of changes in warfare, right? So the reserves and guard counterparts are being utilized a lot more in what we’re doing across the world. What vision do you have going forward with active duty, reserve and guard working closer together, possibly being in the same workspace?

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Yeah, I mean, I’m not sure specifically what your perspective is that led you to that question. But the view that I have and what I have seen over the last 34 years of my career is we have gone from the active guard and reserve being kind of in their own lanes, doing their own thing, to kind of a marriage that could never be undone, right? I think we’ve got partnerships and relationships all over the active guard and reserve component that make it so our missions are completely dependent on one another. Now, in your experiences, you may not have had a chance to witness that just based on where you’ve been stationed and where you’ve worked. But for our reservists in the room, are you guys busy?

Audience:

Hell yeah.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Yeah, real busy right now, right? So and our Guardsmen as well, like everyday missions, taking care of defending North America, deploying all over the world. Like, I don’t know, my sense is that we are integrated and operating alongside of each other in a lot of places.

Audience:

Yeah, I guess just from my perspective, it seems like paperwork aspect, it takes forever, is our active duty counterparts don’t know the processes to get flying with them. So I come from the air crew perspective.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Yeah.

Audience:

And usually active duty has the thought process of, oh, if they’re on this status, they can just come fly with us.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Yeah.

Audience:

And it seems like none of them know the processes. So by the time they figure out the processes, the trip’s already gone.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

That’s a different question. If we’ve got education that we need to do with our active duty flying units, then we’ve got to do that, right? So absolutely a task for us to make sure that our folks understand how to get your talent onto the flight line.

Audience:

Awesome. Thank you.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

You got it. Okay, I think last one. Okay.

Audience:

Okay. Good afternoon, Chief. I’m Tech Sergeant Merritt from the 62MXS at McChord Field. In regards to modernization, I’ve heard it a lot from the industry partners this week, you know, utilizing all these new systems and AI and everything, one of their big things were eliminating all the Excel spreadsheets, right?

CMSAF David Wolfe:

Yeah, please.

Audience:

So, you know, exactly. What does that look like, you know, at the lower levels in regards to training, trackers, taskers, all that good stuff? It seems like every month we’re kind of signing up for a new system, creating new requirements. What’s a roadmap look like where we can start sunsetting some things and get some time back?

CMSAF David Wolfe:

That’s a great question, and we’ve got the same concerns that you do. Even if we figured out the thing that you’re talking about to replace the other thing that’s old, right? I mean, that’s what we’re trying to do. We have a problem with data, right? We have a problem with the data all not being in the same format so that we can get it all in the same language so it can talk to each other and we can trust it, right? So that’s the basics of what we’ve got to do in that department. On the other side of that, this is, you know, I think you said what’s your vision, right? So let me give you what my vision is. My vision is that there will come a day in the not-too-distant future where you will not look at– there will never be another PowerPoint brief given to a commander on anything. There will never be another–yeah, I know some people would be really happy about that. Right now we don’t have a solution for that, though, right? What I would like to see is a–think of like a unit-level operations center that’s running 24/7 on a platform that doesn’t require a bunch of humans to be in it all the time, where in the morning the commander and the senior enlisted leader and maybe the first sergeant walk in there and they just kind of get a status of what’s happening across the entire organization, whether it’s a squadron of 150 or if it’s a wing-level organization, it doesn’t matter, MAJCOM, you know, all of Air Combat Command, you can go in there and you can see there’s our aircraft status, there’s our people status, here’s some hotspot things that we want to maybe spend–maybe we should look at that, like what is that? Let’s drill down into it and figure out how we’re going to spend our time today. And we make decisions based on data that we trust that gives us a real sense of what our mission and people look like. That’s what we need in the future. And there are–there’s people out on the floor that will show you like a piece of what I just said, right? And they’ll be like, “I think we can do that,” right? And that’s great. They probably can, but we’ve got to get this all fused together. I’m encouraged that we’re on like the brink, the technology’s getting there, and I think we’re going to see it in the not-too-distant future where something like what I just described can become a reality.

Audience:

Awesome. Thank you.

CMSAF David Wolfe:

All right. Thanks. All right, folks, hey, I know I’m the closing act here, and I really appreciate AFA giving me the opportunity to be able to do that. I really appreciate you sticking around. We were joking before that this might be like me and my wife and like a few of my friends, and that’s it. And that was not the case. You guys all came out and stayed to watch, and you don’t know how much that means to me. I really appreciate what you do every day. If there’s something I can do for you or my team can do for you, please come talk to us. We really care about what’s going on in the United States Air Force. All of your leadership is locked in. We’re not interested in continuing to talk about the problems over and over and over again. We want to solve them. We want to make these things go away so we can move on to harder problems next. So you’ve got that commitment from me and your chief of staff. Thank you, guys. Have a great night.