Foundation in fundamentals

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Joel Jackson
  • 6th Air Refueling Squadron commander
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  I was recently deployed and while there I watched my share of "Armed Forces News Sports" television. I am not normally a big extreme-games fan, so I am not an expert in what they do; but I was fascinated by the "X-Game Minutes" during commercials. 

Every time I watched those commercials, I stopped and wondered how the athletes got to the point where they could accomplish their maneuvers. How do you get to the point where you can perform no-hand flips on a motorcycle and make it look so easy? 

I had the same thought the other day as some of us were discussing the ongoing KC-10 Extender operations for Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom as well as our involvement in the Operational Readiness Inspection preparation. We are achieving record-breaking accomplishments for KC-10 tanker activities and while those involved know the vast amount of work that goes into this accomplishment, an outsider looking in might think it looks easy. 

Day in and day out the mission just happens. The maintenance group fixes the jets, the mission support and medical groups support the activities, and the operations group flies the sorties. We do this every day; but just as a no-hand flip is not easy and could be deadly if not correctly accomplished. What we do is not easy and has equally fatal possibilities if not done to standards. So how do we make it look easy? 

I believe the answer is a combination of a lot of things, but primarily it is a firm foundation in fundamentals. Before the one-minute snippet on television, the extreme athlete puts in hundreds or thousands of hours practicing his or her skills. He or she started with the fundamentals of bike riding and slowly increased the skill level until he or she was qualified to attempt such a dramatic feat. The same is true of us. 

We are each required to master a basic skill set for our job. Once we master that level of work, we continue to progress until we are suddenly doing things we couldn't imagine doing only a few years ago. When we put all of our fundamentals together, we suddenly have a living organism called "a wing" that is able to accomplish unbelievable things and make it look easy. 

The key to doing all this safely, however, is to always stay within our skill level while we rely on our teammates to do their part. If any of us fail in our part, the entire team breaks down. 

As we move forward into our ongoing operations and exercises, we need to be aware of our individual skill level and how we fit into the entire wing system and strive to continue the appearance of easily accomplishing the mission every day.