• Recognizing my Air Force family

    Sometimes in today's Air Force we get overwhelmed with Wingman days, resiliency training and other "watch out for your buddy" exercises and events. There might even be a tendency to sigh, roll our eyes and wait for the inevitable to be done with. But for as much as we work together, deploy together,

  • Reflecting on the sculptors of my life: the miner

    "Mineral forms of carbon vary greatly," said the test prep book. "For example, both diamonds and graphite are forms of carbon. However, graphite is very weak and soft, and diamonds are the hardest gemstones known to man." Instantly, this reading comprehension question took me back to a fight over my

  • Just show up

    We have all gone through struggles where we've had to search for ways to get through. As a sophomore at the Air Force Academy, I found myself in this position. One brisk fall night I got an email from one of my academic advisors saying my grades were not good and unless I turned around fast, I could

  • Ride the Resiliency Slopes

    Life is like a ski slope. It has smooth parts, bumps, turns, and sometimes even icy patches. Every person on that hill needs to find a way down, no matter what his or her experience level is in negotiating the terrain. Some people are better equipped to tackle the large bumps while others are

  • Resiliency is accepting change, bouncing back, standing strong

    Resilience is the ability to recover from change, misfortune or adversity. The Air Force has had to face those challenges head on. It has gone from a nuclear deterrent mission, able to rain destruction anywhere in the world, to an Air Force that transports airmen and soldiers to far-off places. The

  • More than a bun

    During my junior year at Virginia Tech, an Air Force lieutenant colonel gave me his personal expectation of females in his military. He said to me, "Our female Airmen are examples of every military member. With their hair perfectly pinned back, without a single strand of it misplaced, they showcase

  • AFDW Unit Defines Resilience

    ReĀ·silĀ·ience: noun. 1. the power or ability to return to the original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity; 2. ability to recover readily from adversity, or the like; buoyancy. Air Force District of Washington Logistics, Installations and Mission Support

  • Of Dukes, Dodges and Resiliency

    Sometimes I feel like a character from the 80's TV show "The Dukes of Hazzard." A devilishly-handsome, Dodge-driving victim of circumstance and bad luck who, through no fault of my own, keeps getting thrown into unbelievable predicaments where there seems to be no escape. The Boss Hoggs, Roscoes and

  • Culture of Resilience: Wingmen, Teammates Through Change

    As we come to the Capital Wingman Culture "Culture of Resilience" observation, we realize how much we depend on each other. The 2005 Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines resilience as "an ability to recover from or adjust easily to change or misfortune. " As Air Force District of Washington Wingmen,

  • Innocent OTC medicine decisions can be unintentionally fatal

    Over the holidays my daughter came home from college for a visit... and brought along her germs. First her dad caught it and was out sick the whole holiday. Then, on New Years Day, I started getting sick. We did what we always do. Take day cold medicine during the day, and night cold medicine at