Five lessons from 1st FW Commander

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Chase Hedrick
  • 14th Flying Training Wing Public Affairs
COLUMBUS AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. --  The 1st Fighter Wing Commander added a final piece of training for Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training Class 13-04 during a graduation ceremony in the Kaye Auditorium Jan. 25.

Col. Kevin Robbins picked his top five lessons learned from his Air Force career which includes more than 3,600 hours in the F-22, F-15A/B/C/D and F-16C/D as well as positions as the Commander, United States Air Force Air Demonstration Squadron (Thunderbirds) and Air Force Legislative Fellow, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

"What qualifies me to come and talk to this class?" said Robins. "It's a big deal. Is it my rank, or the positions that I've held or my flight hours? I don't think it's any of that. I don't think rank necessarily means capability, that flight hours necessarily mean skill, and holding a position doesn't necessarily mean I did it well. I do think I'm qualified though, not for those reasons but because of how I've gone about doing everything that has to do with tactical aviation in our United States Air Force."

Derived from his experience came more than a hundred lessons said Robbins, who told the class he picked five: Hold flying sacred, put the mission first, get better every single day, be willing to admit you may be wrong and that it could happen to you, and cultivate that ability to say no and use it when the time comes.

The first of the five, to hold flying sacred, requires individuals to realize that flying is something far bigger than any one person, and needs to be treated with respect, said Robbins.

"When I step across that tarmac to go to the jet, I know the rights and responsibilities that I have to go to that aircraft that come along with being a U.S. Air Force aviator have been paid for over the last century in combat and training with blood, and I owe it to those who have paid that price to do it correctly," he said. "If you approach it that way, I promise you that it'll teach you lessons that don't just have to go with being a pilot. It'll teach you lessons about leadership, about officership, about being a person."

To Fly, Fight, and Win requires putting the mission first said Robbins. It requires doing everything with a combat mindset to be ready to do the job of winning the nation's wars when the time comes he said.

"Approach everything with a combat mindset and think about the mission. I deployed to Operation Desert Storm weeks after getting to my first assignment in Langley's 27th Fighter Squadron, in the 1st Fighter Wing where I am now. Our leadership then, wing leadership, group leadership down made it very clear that our number one priority in the 1st Fighter Wing was to bring everyone home," he said. "But we all knew that our job was to do the mission, and if that meant that we had to hang it out to protect the soldiers on the ground or hang it out a little more to protect the people behind us that were carrying the bombs that day to drop on targets, we were going hang it out and get the mission done."

Being able to get the mission done requires preparation with a combat mindset and getting better every single day, said Robbins. Describing his return to Saudi Arabia from a flight over Iraq in 1991, he told the audience how more than 22 aircraft were told to hold due to foggy conditions at the field. The situation became worse he said, as the base was attacked with Scud missiles, forcing the aircraft to move away from the engagement zone, and putting them on low fuel.

"After a while we clear that up and the Ops Group commander has had enough of holding the jets in the air and he says 'I've waived all weather categories, come in and land.' As a lieutenant, I wasn't really prepared to land in zero-ceiling, zero-visibility weather. I'm going to fly my ILS (Instrument Landing System) all the way down until I feel the wheels hit the ground. That's what I did," he said. "Prepare every day. When the weather's good don't just scoff at that ILS your flying, focus on it like the weather's bad because when the weather's bad, you may need to make it happen."

No matter how skilled someone is or how much they've trained, Robbins advised to always think for a second that you might be wrong, and that it could happen to you. He said that the benefits of keeping that self-doubting thought when a moment is available will make a difference in not just flying, but life, as it wards off complacency, opens consideration of ideas from all members of the team, and keeps away arrogance.

"My best friend in the Air Force back in 1992 was doing a low altitude, high-G turn in the skies over Germany when he fell into G-induced loss of consciousness, slumped over his controls, hit the ground, and died," said Robbins. "I've been on the Red Flag ranges where I've seen smoking holes. I have lost more than two handfuls of friends, people that I know, and I think that some of them thought at the time, 'it can't happen to me'. Don't let it happen to you."

Just as how anything can happen, some things will, said Robbins. He warned the graduates that if they hold true to what is right, there will be others who will try to push them in other directions. For that, he said, Airmen need to cultivate a measured ability to say no.

"Try to compromise without having to say no to power if you can. But if you keep getting backed into a corner, and you finally get to your personal red-line, then it's time to say 'no, I won't do that,'" he said. "When you say no for the right reasons, at personal and professional risk to yourself, that's a good thing. We need that in our aviation core we need that in our Air Force, we need that in our military, we need that in our nation. Be able to say no and stand by it."

No graduate in the room said no to the wings they were about to receive as Col. Robbins offered his final words of encouragement to the class.

"You earned these, they're sitting up here. The Air Force is yours; it's more yours than it is mine. You guys own it, you're going to change it, and you're going to make it happen. I've got my stories and I've got my stuff, but you're going to pick these wings up and you're going to go have your own stories, you're going to have your own adventures, you're going to have your own near-misses," he said. "You're going to have your own times when you have to dig deep into your character to say 'nope, I'm going to stand up to this, and I'm going to do the mental gymnastics to make sure I do it absolutely in the correct way.' Those things are hard, they're difficult things, but they will shape you, and if you listen to all this, it'll make you a better officer, a better leader, and a better person."

"Congratulations," he said. "May God have mercy on our enemy, because here comes Class 13-04, and they will not."