Making the right choices requires discipline

  • Published
  • By Col. Steve Arquiette
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing commander
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  Our lives are full of choices. Many of our New Year's resolutions are choices to change something about ourselves that we don't particularly like or we simply know that our personal standard has slipped too low.

Whatever your choices are, whether they involve dieting, improving your physical fitness level, investing or saving money, expanding your education, nothing will be successful without the discipline to begin and then continually follow through with your plan.

Last summer the standard for the appearance of our base was much too low. We made the choice to recapture the pride in our base and improve its appearance. Since my arrival we have seen many positive changes to the base, but challenges continue to exist. We continue to have reports of vandalism, theft, abandoned vehicles and animals, and other quality of life diminishing activity.

A prime example of this is recently a young child walking in a designated crosswalk was almost hit by a driver. Our Yard-of-the-Month and housing inspection program has resulted in drastic improvements; nearly 50 percent of the housing residents failed to meet the standards during the first inspection.

Now, however, the discipline of staying vigilant, taking the time to pick up a piece of trash and reporting suspicious activity has produced a base we can continue to feel proud of.

Everyone who is authorized entry onto this base is considered a part of our Air Force family, and even our family members choices can affect the Travis family as a whole.

The Mission Support Group is empowered to hold Juvenile Misconduct Boards with the purpose of investigating allegations of misconduct committed by juveniles in the interest of maintaining good order and discipline on Travis.

The board has the power (directly if 60th Mission Support Group commander presides or by recommendation) to curtail or revoke base privileges (driving, access to exchange, commissary, etc.). It can also recommend that I consider barring the juvenile from the base if the misbehavior warrants such action.

While this may sound harsh, we must hold ourselves responsible for maintaining good order and discipline on base and each case is evaluated very closely before any decision is made.

As you can see, the discipline to take action and follow through with a plan will produce results. The higher standards or better performance achieved benefits many.

Speaking of better performance, we are continuously adapting to meet our mission.

Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century and Lean is more and more becoming a part of our daily lives and if it isn't a part of yours -- it needs to be! I'm very proud of all of the recent great process improvements that are appearing throughout Team Travis.

Continue to identify areas that can be streamlined, and have the discipline to follow through on making our processes better ... you'll be amazed at the results!

BE PROUD! BE SAFE!