CSAF speaks candidly to Yokota Airmen

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Matt Summers
  • 374th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan --  "In the end what it's all about is performance," said the senior Air Force officer responsible for organizing, training and equipping nearly 700,000 active-duty, Guard, Reserve and civilian forces.

"If the United States Air Force performs, we don't need to advertise ourselves and proclaim how good we are," said Gen. Norton Schwartz, Air Force Chief of Staff, "our performance will speak for us."

Part of performing will be ensuring that high demand mission areas are being resourced appropriately.

General Schwartz said the Air Force plans to add approximately 4,000 new positions in the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance arena, 2,000 maintainers and 1,000 nuclear positions.

The positions will come from redistribution of billets as the Air Force halts its end drawdown of the service's active duty end strength at 331,700, instead of the service's original plan to drop to 316,000 personnel.

He said officials previously thought cost savings could be achieved by cutting manpower, but due to the continually increasing cost of supporting personnel, the savings were negligible.

"We're changing the strategy -- we're going to take care of our people and make adjustments elsewhere in the portfolio."

The Air Force's fiscal 2010 budget calls for increases of 2.9 percent in basic military pay, 2 percent in civilian pay, 5.6 percent in housing allowance and 5 percent in subsistence allowance, according to Air Force officials. The Air Force will also invest more than $300 million in projects that specifically benefit Airmen, such as military construction, family housing, child development centers, dormitories and a new basic military training facility.

While these investments are sure to enhance the quality of life for all Airmen, the general charged every Airman to look for better ways of doing things.

It's important for each Airman to have a stake in the mission and adhere to the principles of precision, reliability and performance to standards, supervisors must not stifle imagination or innovation, he said

"We as a [Air Force] culture have always been a little questioning -- a little non-accepting of the status quo," he said. "That's how we propelled ourselves to do better.

"It's important for folks to have the courage to push things you know are better and to elevate them."

The general used the fitness program as an example of a program that can be improved upon.

One of the fundamental reasons for an emphasis on fitness is managing healthcare cost, he said. The Department of Defense will spend more than $47 billion on healthcare in fiscal 2010 and $65 billion two to three years in the future, according to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. General Schwartz said this equals between 10 and 15 percent of the entire defense budget.

He also said Airmen cannot maintain the collective pace the United States needs from a military at war without being a fit force.

"It needs to be a program that recognizes that we have some folks that may have been left tackles for the New York Giants and others who might have been ballerinas," he said. "And both of those people are fit."

The chief of staff said he plans to iron out a simplified program at an upcoming CORONA meeting where Air Force senior leaders gather to discuss issues.

He said two of the major changes to be discussed are uniformly administered tests by personnel outside of the chain of command of the person being tested and administering tests twice a year. PACAF leadership moved to centralize all fit testing under base health and wellness centers in March in order to better standardize the process and relieve time demands on Airmen administering the tests.

Senior leaders will also look at ways to acknowledge those who go above and beyond the standard.

"We know what the minimums are, but do we encourage people to exceed those minimums," he said.

Airmen can expect to see the results of decisions made at the CORONA later this summer at www.af.mil.