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  • Staying away from ethical cliffs

    I remember hearing a story when I was a boy that went something like this - A man was looking to hire a wagon team that could haul his goods through steep mountain cliffs. He interviewed three different drivers.  The first said he could drive the wagon within one foot of the road's edge.  The second said he could do it within six inches.  The third

  • Celebrating Black History Month

    Pop quiz - what famous person invented the light bulb?  Sorry, no multiple choice answers here, but if you guessed Thomas Edison then good job!  Second question - who wrote the Emancipation Proclamation?  If you knew it was President Abraham Lincoln then I assume you know a little bit of history.  Last question - what athlete left the biggest

  • Learning from our K-9 counterparts

    It's a bad guy's worst nightmare. An 85-pound "blur of black and gray fur" running after him at 35 mph and closing fast. When the bad guy looks back, he sees two big green eyes fixated on him and only him, and then notices the sharp teeth extending from black lips to take a bite out of the slowest part of his body.Knowing that if he keeps running a

  • Second chances

    I believe in second chances - professionally, personally.  Without second chances, where would most of us be today? I was given more than one second chance during the last 16 years and I constantly ask myself why that is.  What was the common thread with my bosses and leadership, which allowed them to have the grace to grant me and others another

  • Mission effectiveness relies on equal treatment of all

    Over the past 20 days I have been shadowing the 341st Missile Wing Equal Opportunity office as a potential retrainee. During this time I have learned a plethora of things, but the most important is how unit cohesion has a direct impact on the Air Force mission. Also, I have learned that things that we do day-to-day can have a negative impact on

  • A call to serve – mission verses job

    When I joined the Air Force as an airman basic in May of 1982, it never occurred to me that I would still be serving on active duty nearly 33 years later!  I separated from the Air Force at the end of my four year enlistment in May of 1986 and by December of that year my income had nearly tripled with the promise of upward mobility. It seemed to

  • Comprehensive Airman Fitness

    After 26 years as a civil servant working for the Air Force, I became the Malmstrom Air Force Base Community Support Coordinator in January 2013.  This was a new position within the Air Force, so it left a lot of people wondering and asking "what is it that you do?"I suddenly found myself in a position where I took on responsibilities that others

  • Impacting the people around us

    When a stone is tossed in a pond, one can see the ripples it produces extend hundreds of times the diameter of the stone.  Our day to day interactions with our peers and subordinates can have the same sort of effect, without our even realizing it. A decade ago, one of my Airman experienced a tragic personal loss, which dramatically affected her. 
  • Airmen load hay onto a C-119 Flying Boxcar in December of 1964 on the runway at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont. Frigid temperatures and heavy snowfall during the month of December led to the declaration of a major disaster for southwest Montana. Ranchers suffered major livestock losses resulting from extreme negative temperatures and snowfall, and landowners were unable to reach their cattle and sheep. Cargo aircraft from five reserve units were mobilized to help drop hay to the stranded animals. The Air Reserve units managed to drop 65 tons of hay to about 100,000 head of livestock during Operation Hay Lift, using low-level drops of hay bales to the stranded animals. (Courtesy photo)

    Operation Hay Lift

    Airmen at Malmstrom Air Force Base share many different visions of the holiday season as they prepare to return home or settle down to enjoy the holidays.  Fifty years ago, the members of the base witnessed a little different vision of the season.  At the beginning of December, temperatures began to plummet with the thermometer reaching 32 degrees

  • An expression of gratitude: SARC office thankful for volunteers and support

    "An expression of gratitude for something" is the Encarta Dictionary's definition for "giving thanks." I am the Sexual Assault Response Coordinator (SARC) and Debra Glenn is the Lead Sexual Assault Victim Advocate (SAVA). As a small, two-person office, our jobs would be much more difficult if we didn't have such a fantastic volunteer force helping
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