Commentary Just as a preface, this story has a point. Mainly that there are lessons I learned early in life that have stood me in good stead. Such as the need to be patient and calm when things are going sideways, and also to keep my mouth shut unless I have something of real value…
How I Stayed Grounded With 40 Years’ Experience in Civilian and Military Aviation
April 7, 2023
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Air Force AircrewAir Force careerArchivedBattlefields ProjectDave ChamberlinOpinionThe Havok JournalThunderbirdsVeterans
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What It Means to Be an ‘Educated’ Warfighter
April 6, 2023
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ArchivedBattlefieldsBattlefields Projecteducated warrioreducation in the militaryOpinionThe Havok JournalVeterans
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Commentary So, what does “education” for a warfighter look like? In today’s military, many lament the tremendous amounts of time spent on what seems to be useless teaching—SHARP (Sexual Harassment / Assault Response and Prevention), EO (Equal Opportunity), “don’t-rape-that-person-or-that-one,” etc.—and a lack of relevant training. Whether or not the former examples are pointless is, although…
Trust, COVID, and the General Who Cried ‘Wolf’
Commentary Once upon a time, there was an Air Force general in the Pentagon who was in charge of all the F-16s in the Air Force, and he found out about a very dangerous problem that the aircraft had developed. He brought in experts from Lockheed Martin and the Depot and they met to determine…
Air Force and Air National Guard: Stop Treating Part-Timers Like They’re Subjects in a Social Experiment
Commentary This post popped up on my feed today on a business networking site where a mom was talking about her young daughter getting older. “’It’s easier and faster if I just do it myself,’ I say this way too much. My daughter has been teaching me a valuable life lesson without even knowing it….
Afghanistan: When ‘Humanitarian’ Projects, Aren’t
Commentary Engineers, especially civil engineers, build things. It’s what we do, and we consider each project, large or small, “our” project. Being a civil engineer in the Army engineering branch was especially rewarding. We played with bridge sets, construction equipment, and building parts. Army combat engineering also meant building structures for war: runways, fighting positions…
The ‘Sheepdog’ Analogy is Deeply Flawed
Commentary Just about everyone in the military is familiar with the sheep, wolves, and sheepdog analogy, as popularized by LTC (Ret) Grossman in his book “On Combat.” We all fit into one of those categories, he says—we need protecting, we are a predator, or we are a protector. While Grossman’s analogy has a lot to…
Spot the (Military) Poser
March 25, 2023
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ArchivedBattlefieldsBattlefields ProjectDave Chamberlainmilitary posersOpinionThe Havok JournalVeterans
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Commentary I’ve mentioned before that I really enjoy observing human behavior and one of my favorite scenarios is group interactions. Some of the best and most fruitful locations are military and civilian staff meetings. It’s great fun picking out the players and the posers and classifying them into their respective categories. Let’s just look at…
Why Gallows Humor Is Essential in the Military
Commentary For the most part, the huddled masses know nothing of the concept of gallows humor, and yet for many in the military, it’s just a part of their normal daily behavior. Most of us think little of it—that is, until an outsider gets a hold of what one of us has said or a…
Not a Defense of the US (Ch)air Force
Commentary So I’m not going to try to defend the accusation that the U.S. Air Force (AF) is actually the “Chair Force,” e.g. we’re not really the military; the hardest thing for the AF is not having four towels in the five star hotel etc.—those kinds of accusations. And I’m sure all of you have…
Sometimes You Gotta Break the Rules to Take Care of Your People
March 22, 2023
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ArchivedBattlefields Projectbreaking the rules to take care of peopleDave ChamberlainOpinionthe epoch timesThe Havok JournalVeterans
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Commentary Sometimes heroes show up when you least expect them, and this is about one of those times. Most of my active duty Air Force time was spent teaching aircraft crew chiefs at Sheppard Air Force Base in the early 1980s. On this particular summer day, I had my class out on the flight line…
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