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  • Letter to Airmen - Accomplishing the Mission Safely and Responsibly

    "Winning at safety is like winning in sports. It's not the effort of one person, but the focus and determination of the entire team working towards a common goal..." - Author UnknownMobility Airmen,In my last letter to you, I asked you to call "time out" and re-evaluate how we can safely accomplish

  • Sacrifices…Don’t Underestimate Their Importance

    As I was reviewing some enlisted performance reports and decorations today, I started contemplating a huge event in my life that occurred almost 20 years ago. In April of 1995, I asked my then girlfriend Tiffani, a fellow Airman at the time, to be my wife, for better or worse. We were married later

  • February is National Children's Dental Health Month

    February is National Children's Dental Health Month! It is a special month for dental health care providers to focus on how we can support and improve our children's dental health. The following are just a few helpful children's dental health tips:      Every child falls at some point in their life.

  • Back to Basics: Team Identity Changing "I" to "We"

    We in the MacDill AFB community are all part of many teams. Be it in the smallest unit, up through the military echelons of the combatant commands; we are part of many groups culminating to "Team MacDill". But, do you really identify yourself as part of Team MacDill? Does your team have conflict

  • New Found Appreciation

    My senior year of high school, I remember watching my dad leave the house, dressed in uniform, Thanksgiving morning. This was going to be my last year spending the holiday with my family all together, and he was on his way to a lunch that leadership was hosting for single Airmen living in the

  • There I Was...Another bad day survived

    On my deployment to southern Afghanistan, I was part of a two man Explosive Ordnance Disposal team (EOD) tasked as a Helicopter Response Force (HRF) for British soldiers who encountered an improvised explosive device and needed EOD support. Because our area of responsibility covered almost the

  • The "Lone Wolf" Threat

    In the news lately has been a lot of discussion about terrorist groups such as ISIS encouraging "Lone Wolves" to attack US military members in America. I take this threat seriously, because during my last assignment, ten people were killed because after making themselves easy targets through their

  • Your health: It's more than you

    On an October night in 1997, I was calmly awakened by my cousin in the middle of the night with some news....She had received a call saying that we needed to come to the hospital.  She didn't express to me why, but when we arrived, there lie my best friend... my mother.She had tubes coming out of

  • There I Was...

    On 1 September 2013, I started on another journey that would land me in Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan. Although it first came as a surprise due to my short time on station, it was just another deployment...or so I thought. Upon my 1 a.m. arrival to KAF, I was met by a cheerful fellow who was very

  • Something bigger than me

    Hearing a five or six-year-old child say "my daddy's dead" or "my daddy's gone" is not something you can prepare for. And to hear a child express it so calmly can be disheartening.When I signed up for the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors Good Grief Camp, a program specific to families that