Everyone has a role on Team Travis

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Johnny Barnes
  • 9th Air Refueling Squadron commander
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE,Calif. --  It's National Football League Playoff season again.

As I watch teams battle to get to the Super Bowl, I notice many ways Team Travis is like a great football squad.

With any team competing for a championship, there are significant victories along the way. For Team Travis, examples abound:

· The 615th Contingency Response Wing winning the Chief of Staff Team Excellence award for exploits in Haiti and the Verne Orr Award for the most efficient use of human resources.

· David Grant USAF Medical Center earning "VPP STAR" status - only the second medical center in the Department of Defense to do this - and being named the No. 1 medical center in Air Mobility Command and now competing for No. 1 in the Air Force.

· Our three major weapons systems doing what they do with the 21st Airlift Squadron's record-setting four-month deployment, the 6th Air Refueling and the 9th ARS being partly deployed 20 years without interruption, the 22nd AS C-5s doing things no other airframe can do for America and the reserve squadrons contributing at unprecedented levels.

· Team Travis winning the Commander-in-Chief's Installation Excellence Award for AMC and now being one of two finalists for the Air Force award.

With football teams, victories are won in the weight room when no one is clapping for team members.

For Team Travis, it was innumerable small victories, inglorious work and all the support units coming together, be it maintainers turning wrenches under miserable conditions; administrators processing paper to keep the team paid and careers on track; morale units keeping things fun for everyone, medical personnel healing our bodies and everything in between.

Team Travis has led the way in every effort requiring global mobility for America: from the support operations in Haiti a year ago - where all three wings and DGMC provided relief - to the oil spill cleanup in the Gulf; from presidential movements to phenomenal support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and relief mission in the Horn of Africa; and the 349th Air Mobility Wing participating in every major strategic operation in 2010.

Just like you won't read about the offensive linemen on the front page of the New York Times, you won't read about our exploits there either, but just try and win without us.

My message is simple: cherish the time you have with this team. It truly is unlike any other in the world.

Travis has three wings, the 15th Expeditionary Mobility Task Force and 53 partner organizations working together synergistically like the offense, defense and special teams of a championship football squad.

Even great NFL players earning millions of dollars know there is no substitute for being part of something greater and bigger than themselves. Most never play in a championship game - even if they are all players.

Being on a team like the one at Travis is a privilege you may never have again in your career. The sweetest thing of all is that we actually have something those all-star NFL players will never have, no matter how much hardware they have on their mantle at the end of their career. We have the opportunity to support life-and-death operations for America's warfighters. Think about it. When will you ever have the chance again to make such a difference?

Even if it feels like your role isn't as significant and nobody knows your name, cherish this time because your role is incredibly important. The team wouldn't be as successful without you.

Pour all you have into what we're doing here and be fully immersed in the a team make championship run, but one that has so much more meaning than any football game, no matter how great the nachos or how funny the commercials.