Columbus AFB goes Back-2-BLAZE

Published May 6, 2011
By Col. Barre Seguin
14th Flying Training Wing commander

COLUMBUS AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- Team BLAZE, our World Series of inspections is over, for now. And with the closing of our series, comes a new wing #1 priority. Our new #1 Team BLAZE priority shifts our focus of effort, beyond mission accomplishment, away from inspection preparation and back to the cornerstone of our Team. Team BLAZE, we are now putting a priority of effort toward getting Back-2-BLAZE!

BLAZE, our wing's moniker and cornerstone, was coined by Maj. Gen. Jack Catton, USAF, retired, when he was the 14th Flying Training Wing Commander in the late nineties. In search of a rally-cry, one the 14 FTW Airmen could get behind and identify with as a wing moniker, Gen. Catton ran a contest. He tasked Columbus Air Force Base Airmen to offer slogans for consideration. He selected BLAISE, for Building Leaders, Advancing Integrity, Service Before Self, and Excellence in all we do. When BLAISE was ceremoniously unfurled, Airmen shrugged their shoulders, looked at one another, and with a questioning voice asked, "Blasé?" Quickly realizing Blasé wasn't the rally-cry he was looking for, Gen. Catton went back to the drawing board and the wing ended up with BLAZE, for Building Leaders, Advancing Integrity, S[Z]ervice before S[Z]elf, and Excellence in all we do.

Recent lapses of discipline both at Team BLAZE and around Air Education and Training Command have highlighted the necessity to increase our emphasis on our Air Force basics of building leaders and ensuring our Airmen embody our Air Force core values. Each incident occurred, in part, due to a failure of leadership or a breakdown in adherence to our AF core values, which resulted in mission failure. As our cornerstone, we must focus our Feed the Fight efforts on building leaders and ensuring our core values are instilled and part of what defines our Airmen. This is our wing priority, and our focus on Back-2-BLAZE will start from the top.

Leadership is the skill of influencing people to enthusiastically accomplish the mission, with character that inspires confidence. According to Jim Hunter, a leading expert on servant leadership, leadership is character in action, and leadership development and character development are one. Therefore, our focus on building leaders must focus on character development, and, to that end, on reinforcing the personal courage necessary to commit to and cultivate compliance. Additionally, we must personally have the courage to live our core values and to expect and enforce the same in our fellow Airmen. Building leaders is building character, and building character is committing to compliance and our core values. Leadership is about doing the right thing. Character is about doing the right thing. Living our core values is the right thing...always.

I've often heard integrity defined as doing the right thing regardless of who's watching. I recently discovered a new definition of integrity. When talking to a group of over 400 elementary school age children, I asked, "How many of you want me to stop talking so you can get on with enjoying the planned festivities?" All 400+ hands went up. That's integrity!

Service before self is not only about putting the demands of the mission first, but it's also about being a servant leader to peers and those entrusted to our care. We need to strive daily to ensure the needs of those we work with or supervise are met ahead of our own needs. This is service before self. Lastly, we strive for excellence, always! Excellence is compliance and accomplishing the mission to the best of our ability within our resource constraints. Feeding the Fight with respect to building leaders, advancing integrity, service before self, and excellence in all we do brings us Back-2-BLAZE.

One additional thought: in our core values, it is not just integrity, but rather integrity first. That means when in a situation where our core values of excellence or service before self conflict, always resort to integrity...first.

The "2" in Back-2-BLAZE is what wingmen in flight use to respond to their flight lead when directed to accomplish a task. Thus, my priority also embodies the wingman concept within the framework of living our core values.

So, Team BLAZE, at all levels our priority is building leaders and emphasizing and holding each other accountable for being the embodiment of our core values. We will deliberately pursue this priority, with our BLT or BLAZE Leadership Team leading the way. The BLT will have an off-site the first weekend of June focused on "Servant Leadership and Strategic Negotiation" development, as well as a WWII D-Day walk through history. I expect leaders at all levels to find ingenious ways to develop leaders entrusted to their care and to ensure our core values are inculcated into every Team BLAZE Airman. Part of my guidance to Team BLAZE is to "Be a wingman." Let's be wingmen to one another as we get Back-2-BLAZE!