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Commentary Search

  • The struggle for patience

    We often hear the phrase "patience is a virtue." Yet, for all our efforts at self-enhancement we continue to struggle with our own tendency to want something to happen, when we want it to happen. Patience is a challenge for each person. This is especially true in an environment where so little is in

  • This is not Burger King - you might not get it "your way"

    "Hold the pickles; hold the lettuce, special orders don't upset us, all we ask is that you let us serve it your way". This is the famous 1970's sales jingle from the fast food chain Burger King. Only a handful of us old timers might recall those musical commercials, but the message was clear -

  • Strive to achieve goals on deployments

    For many of us here on Kandahar Airfield, this isn't our first time deploying. Being deployed is a great opportunity to establish new goals, stride for or even complete previous goals. Let me define what a goal is. A goal can be defined as "an observable and measurable end result having one or more

  • Afghans teach American Air advisor life lessons - The Crow & the Quail

    According to an old Afghan tale, there was once a crow who, in the normal course of business gathering straw to build his nest, took notice of another bird. This bird was clearly not a crow...he possessed a very unique appearance. His feathers were colorful, he had a very ornate tuft of plumage on

  • SABC training critical in deployed environment, no matter where you go

    During the course of our predeployment training, many of us were probably tempted to click through the online predeployment training modules in the Advanced Distributed Learning System. If you were like me, there was a strong temptation to "fill the square" and get the mandatory training completed

  • Tomorrow’s heroes are today’s Airmen

    "Grandpa, where were you when America was fighting the terrorists?" "Grandma, what did you do in Afghanistan?" Some of you will, no doubt, have these questions asked of you by grandchildren you haven't even imagined yet. Some of us deployed to Kandahar are parents, a few are already grandparents,

  • AIRPOWER -- a team sport defined

    As I look back on my first two weeks as the wing commander and Iraqi Training and Advisory Mission--Air director I have to say as proud as I was to join the team, I become even more proud as I truly start to grasp the breadth and depth of what we, as an Air Force, do every day. It is ironic that my

  • Know when you need a power of attorney

    Can you guess what the most common piece of paper produced by the legal office is? Is it Articles 15? Legal reviews? No, it's the power of attorney (or "POA" for short). For a wing of our size, we produced more than 3,300 powers of attorney last year. That means that more than one in every 10 people

  • Tomorrow is a brand new day

    I remember when I was growing up and I wanted to get my driver's license. I'd just turned 16, and at that age there wasn't a better way to validate how cool a person was than by having a driver's license. Actually, my twin sister and I were both going to take the test on the same day. My sister

  • Attitude: where are you in relation to the horizon

    We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent of how I react