Dobbins: Great Year Lived, Great Year Forward

by Chief Master Sgt. Wendell Peacock, 94th Airlift Wing command chief,

Ladies and gentlemen—we've enjoyed another successful and blessed year as a wing and as a family. As a global family we've survived several natural disasters—earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis and hurricanes.

We were angered by the assassination attempt of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Gifford of Arizona and suffered through the agony of the families of the six individuals killed as a result of that attempt.

We mourned the death of our brothers and sisters in arms who served overseas and helped seal the victories in Southwest Asia.

We patiently waited, listened and observed as our governments worked to keep our local and federal budgets afloat.

We celebrated the victories of our sports champions, along with the victories of our local youth leagues. We also worked with our young to instill the values that make us a great nation. Local sports teams, the Girl Scouts, as well as the Civil Air Patrol, the Army Cadets and Boy Scouts of America, are only a few of the many organizations we collectively support.

We said goodbye to our longtime military neighbors at Forts Gillem and McPherson, as well as our sailors and Marines at Naval Air Station Atlanta. We've reached out to our civilian community with the establishment of the .

We celebrated the success of the U.S. Navy Seal team that terminated the leadership of Osama bin Laden; a terrorist whose influence reminded us to be vigilant of our shores and of our neighbors' shores on other continents.

We celebrated the intellectual capacity of our men and women at NASA who successfully composed and orchestrated 135 flights of the space shuttle program.

We bid farewell to our active-duty members, Reservists and Guardsmen who deployed to the war zones of Southwest Asia and welcomed them back with tears, joy and a renewed sense of brotherhood and sisterhood.

We welcomed our new mission as a tactical wing and our new Airmen. Our junior and senior NCOs mentored our new brothers and sisters in arms. We supported each other through professional organizations such as the Dobbins Top Three.

We bid farewell to our departing commanders and welcomed their successors.
We survived the of terrorism on the eve of .

As we begin a new year with 2012, there are some things we must focus on to be successful as a wing and as individuals.

Budget and personnel
As we've experienced over the past year funding is tight. This isn't going to change. This isn't just a "wing thing". It's a Department of Defense thing and it impacts every area of operations, maintenance, procurement, personnel and well-being of our wing. A large percentage of the military's budget to include our own is spent on personnel. Therefore we must use our time wisely. It's important that every Airman does his or her part during the Air Force's streamlining of personnel versus mission requirements.

Your job, our mission
On Oct. 1, we converted from a . With the mission change, there were many wing members (military and civilian) whose jobs were affected. We've also seen a reorganization and new mission for 22 AF. The wing has taken care of every member who was eligible for job relocation to make sure that it kept its most valuable asset: its people. Many members were reassigned to other units. The wing is doing its best to make sure those members get properly trained to perform their new duties. If you're like me change isn't easy, but I encourage you to accept the change. If we are resistant it will only make change more difficult for you and everyone involved. However, I've found that if I accept it and develop a positive plan of action things flow much easier and I experience less stress.

Preparation
Our mission transition will increase our operations tempo. The overall downsizing of our active duty forces may bring more deployments, which means more separation from our families, civilian jobs, etc. Our Airmen must maintain a 100 percent state of readiness.

Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve
Keep your families and civilian employers informed and get them involved in ESGR. Make sure family affairs are in order (JAG, DEERS, family Readiness, etc). Make sure you maintain your personal readiness--Fit to Fight, medical requirements, and your deployment records). Each of us has made the commitment to serve. With that commitment comes personal responsibility and accountability. It's time to step it up.

Remember our core values
Remember--Integrity First, Service before Self and Excellence in all we do--and exercise our core values. If you will put these core values into action everything will fall in place and we will experience new heights never seen before within our beloved 94th.

I am proud to serve you as your Command Chief and to serve with you. I look forward to an exciting new year. May God continue to bless the 94th Airlift Wing and this great country in which we live and serve!