What difference can you make?

Air & Space Power Journal, Summer, 2007 by John P. Hearn

AIR FORCE SUPERVISORS commonly reward their subordinates for outstanding performance. The decorations they bestow represent tangible expressions of gratitude. oftentimes, however, supervisors never realize the effect they have had on their subordinates.

The finest compliment I ever received came from one of my former subordinates. When I supervised him, he was an Airman first class; now he's a senior master sergeant. He once told me that, had it not been for me, he would have left the Air Force to become a civilian. I did not save his life in a moment of glory; on the contrary, I had several interesting talks with him concerning his demeanor and his methods for communicating with other Airmen of varying ranks. As a law-enforcement desk sergeant, he frequently had opportunities to excel when conversing with other people on base. Since we were stationed together during a "short tour" in Korea, I had only a few months to interact with him before he was reassigned. Years later, he told me how I had influenced his life--that I had inspired him by my example. What a feeling! in essence, I succeeded at one of the jobs the Air Force paid me to do because part of a leader's job involves developing subordinates to be future leaders.

At times a person's actions influence the Air Force's mission far beyond the demands of his or her job description. For example, late in the spring of 1957 on the first day of candidate-prescreening orientation, a young man stood on a scale at the Air Force Academy clinic. The medical technician--an Airman first class who had processed thousands of candidates--slowly slid the black, notched block across the measuring arm, stopping the block when the point of the arm had centered itself: "one hundred and fifteen pounds, Sir," he said. The doctor, a major, annotated a checklist on the candidate's medical record and commented, "You're not going to make it, kid. The minimum required weight for admission to the academy is 120 pounds. You have to meet that standard when you weigh out at the end of the week." Devastated at this news, the young man thought of his father, who had enlisted in the Army and served throughout World War II, winning a commission and finally retiring as a colonel. His father had high expectations for him and had expended a great deal of effort to win his appointment to the academy. How could he tell him of his failure to meet admission standards?

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Seeing the despair in the young man's eyes, the technician told him to wait outside the office; he came to see him when the doctor took a break: "Listen to me. Go over to the chow hall and see the mess sergeant. Tell him i sent you, and tell him about the problem you have; he'll take care of you."

At the academy's dining facility, the mess sergeant--overweight, unshaven, and inarticulate--patiently listened to the candidate's plight and said, "Okay kid, you just eat whatever i put on your plate." Over the next week, the sergeant made a point of filling the young man's plate with pasta, fats, bananas, and carbohydrates--food that, in today's Air Force, would give a dietary technician a coronary. Although the candidate stuffed himself at every meal, the intense physical activities packed into the orientation program prevented him from gaining weight. By week's end, the young man lay in bed contemplating his future and worrying about the next day's outprocessing physical.

Just before lunch, the candidate entered the doctor's office for his weigh-out. Earlier he had weighed himself, happily seeing that he was up to 120 pounds. Now, however, at the clinic he heard the technician announce, "One hundred and eighteen pounds, Sir." The doctor made his final mark on the candidate's medical record and turned his gaze upon him: "See, kid, I told you that you wouldn't make it." He then tossed the record into the wastebasket. in his anguish, the young man explained, "I had to do my final physical fitness exercises and the run this morning. I lost weight doing that." The technician followed him into the hall and handed him a quarter: "Go down the hall, and buy a carton of chocolate milk." Puzzled, the candidate asked him, "Why do you want a carton of milk now?"

"It's not for me; it's for you."

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm not thirsty right now."

The technician stared at the candidate as a parent would when disciplining a wayward child: "Listen, Mister, a carton of chocolate milk is one quart and weighs just over two pounds." After the young man returned with the milk, the technician watched him drink it all down and then approached the doctor:

"Sir, would you do me a favor and weigh that last candidate one more time?"

"I already marked him as a failure. He didn't make the weight."

But the technician persisted, so the doctor agreed to his request. As the candidate once more stood on the scale, the technician slid the weighted block across the measuring arm until the pointer centered itself.

"One hundred and twenty pounds, Sir."

"You're very lucky, young man. You just barely made it."