Fifth CMSAF compares old, new at annual Academy awards

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Raymond Hoy
  • Air Force Academy Public Affairs
U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. --  The fifth chief master sergeant of the Air Force came to the Academy to speak to guests at the Academy's Annual Awards Banquet Feb. 26 in the Falcon Club.

Retired Chief Master Sgt. Bob Gaylor also took some time to speak with enlisted Airmen prior to the awards in an enlisted call in the Milazzo Center.

The room was filled to capacity to listen to a man who had seen the early days of the Air Force, an Air Force that maybe wasn't as different from today's Air Force as people may think.

Chief Gaylor gave the Airmen a rundown of the early days of his career. He talked about basic training and how he never had a career field until he got to his first base. And while some of the things he spoke of seemed foreign to many on hand, a lot of the issues were things current Airmen could relate to. One of those issues is communication within the chain of command.

"Today's Airmen have a voice," he said. "In my day you were told to shut up and listen. Airmen now have the opportunity to be a part of the idea process. But some don't know when to stop. Once you are listened to, once you express your comment, idea or thought, and once the person you shared it with has acknowledged your comment, it's time to shut up and get on with the business at hand. Some people don't understand that. It's something you develop over time to know when to talk and when to listen."

The chief was directly involved in a lot of big decisions over his career. But most of the big decisions came when he was a chief. The enlisted representation throughout the chain of command didn't exist the way it does today.

"When I was a chief, I sat there with the three and four star generals," he explained. "Frequently I was the only enlisted person in the room. And they would listen to me and take notes and action would happen. You've got enlisted representation now starting with your first sergeants to your superintendents and your command chiefs. All the way up you have conduits of information."

While some things remain the same, he said some things have to change to make it a better Air Force.

"There are some great ideas we've learned over the last 62 years: How to assign Airmen to career fields, how to take care of families, how to listen to Airmen when they want to share an idea or a thought ... we've come a long way," the chief said. "And I'd like to think I made some of that happen."

Before taking questions, the chief made some things perfectly clear:

"I no longer go to staff meetings; my clearance is quite outdated; I am not in the know," he said. "That's what we're paying Chief (Master Sgt.) Jim Roy a bunch of money for. He's supposed to be in the know. You would know more about today's Air Force than I do. But if you want to talk about how we got where we are; if you want to talk about how a segregated Air Force became integrated; if you want to talk about we went from less than 1 percent female to 19.2 percent; if you want to talk about racial opportunity in education, I'm your man. I was there! I lived it! I'm a walking encyclopedia of Air Force history."

One question was asked regarding the current issue with resources. Chief Gaylor pointed out that this is not a new concept.

"When I served at the NCO Academy at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana, I taught two classes and they had to shut the place down because of the Vietnam War," he said. "They decided to sacrifice NCO education for the war effort."

He's also seen the flip side of that.

"By 1960, we peaked at about 840,000 enlisted men and women," Chief Gaylor said. "We almost had too many people; we were running into each other. I remember transferring into a unit where we had to share a desk. The first person in to work in the morning got the desk."