Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force James Roy visits Goodfellow Published Aug. 3, 2012 By Senior Airman Anne Gathua 17th Training Wing Public Affairs GOODFELLOW AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- Team Goodfellow hosted Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force James Roy, Aug. 1-2, a visit that saw him meet with service members and get a first-hand look at the firefighting and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission. "The ability that our instructors here provide to our force as a whole is amazing in all domains," Chief Roy said. "We have joint partners out there that rely on these capabilities. The experiences that the instructors bring to the fight and share with the students is where the magic is. We have to be flexible so we can have the ability to shape the battlefield and not be shaped." Chief Roy said that the nation's fiscal challenges will affect the Department of Defense. "Some of the things that will certainly affect how we do things in the future are the budgets," Chief Roy said. "As our nation goes through its crisis and budgetary constraints we are going to have to look at those tasks that we do and whether they have mission value. Does the mission really require that task to be done? If not, we really need to seriously examine how we do that task and look at the fact that some of the resources for developing Airmen may not be there." He went on to say that we need to look closely at how we develop the Airmen. "We need to continue focusing on training and get as much as we can out of every dime we put into training and exercises," the chief added. "We have to take advantage of every education opportunity because they are not going to be abundant. The experience pieces won't be the same in the future and we have to continue to look at how we continue to provide those experiences to our Airmen." On deployments, Chief Roy said that moving forces out of Iraq and Afghanistan is going to affect our deployment rate, but we should make sure we take advantage of training opportunities. He also talked about the changes in the air expeditionary force system. The 'AEF Next' version that we are coming out with will not change the entire system but refine the current way we do deployments," Chief Roy said. "It will give us the ability to communicate within the joint community and the ability to deploy with leaders and teams we have trained with." Chief Roy had dinner with community leaders and was absolutely impressed with the amount of support the community provides to Team Goodfellow. "As I shared with them, when we deploy our service members, one of the things we rely on is that our families will be taken care of," he said. "The fact that we have a community that embraces Team Goodfellow is amazing and exciting. My hat is off to the community, thank you for embracing Goodfellow and all the men and women who call this home." Impressed by the level of professionalism and compliance of standards at Goodfellow, Chief Roy said that everybody has the same focus which is making sure we provide training to the next generation of war-fighters. Chief Roy said our service members are the best trained, equipped and educated and thanked them and the families assigned here. "I'd like to say a special thank you on behalf of the United States Air Force leadership to the family members who sacrifice so much," he added. "If it wasn't for them we wouldn't be doing what we're doing." In conclusion, Chief Roy said it was an absolute honor and privilege to be here and to serve as our chief master sergeant of the Air Force. "We have many challenges ahead of us but we are part of the best DOD the world has ever seen and at the end of the day we are going to continue to be the best that this world will ever see, so thank you for your contribution to that and I look forward to serving you," he said.
