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Commentary Search

  • The picture tells a story

    There is a picture frame on my desk holding a casual snapshot of my wife and me. There's nothing particularly special about the small, silver frame. But in my 22 years in the Air Force, it's the first time I've ever had a picture of anyone on my desk at work. Seeing my loved one during the duty day

  • Public Affairs during a crisis

    In the span of a few brief seconds on April 15, innocent lives were tragically ended and others forever changed by the terrorist bombings at the Boston Marathon. Even as federal, state and local authorities cooperatively work to piece together evidence to determine how this could have happened, why

  • Who am I to say what's right or wrong?

    I'm a military broadcaster and my job is to know everything I can about military broadcasting.I'm supposed to work hard and continually strive to become better at what I do. I would never expect a medical technician to know how to conduct an interview or shoot footage correctly and you certainly

  • We wear the cloth of our nation, the ABU

    November 1 marks the official end to the woodland Battle Dress Uniform and the Desert Combat Uniform, also known as the BDU and DCU. On that date, the Airman Battle Uniform is the only authorized battle dress uniform for Air Force members stateside. Wear of the ABU items will be mandatory according

  • Maintaining 3-D vision

    If you've been to the movies in last year, chances are you've watched one in 3-D. This old-turned-new technology is designed to make movies come to life, enhancing our viewing experience. It used to be clunky, with ugly cardboard glasses. But, the entertainment industry went "back to basics,"

  • My CCAF journey

    I sat down hard on the bed in our small Wiesbaden apartment when the news came: child number two was on the way and I knew, right then, that I had to get my collective together.It was January 1985, cold and sunny, and my wife Kim and I just stared at each other. Child number one was strolling

  • Development Projects -- Seeing Progress First Hand

    One would think that measuring progress in a war-torn country would be easy, especially in the civil engineering realm where we traditionally measure progress by dollars spent, miles of roads opened, and numbers of buildings constructed. After all, when you start with no real infrastructure to speak

  • Ambassador Holbrooke's legacy tied to Wright-Patt, Dayton

    The unexpected death of Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, the American diplomat credited with helping to forge a lasting peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995, was deeply felt by many in Dayton and at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.Mr. Holbrooke was serving most recently as U.S. special

  • Accountability and face time help us get back to basics

    In September, Gen. Donald Hoffman, commander of Air Force Materiel Command, launched a new campaign known as 'Hold the Line,' aimed at reinvigorating the command's maintenance of standards, discipline and service culture.Throughout AFMC, and especially here at Hanscom, one can easily see why basic

  • 'Ordinary' Americans set stage for extraordinary deeds

    As a youth, I was spellbound by books such as "The Flying Tigers," "30 Seconds Over Tokyo," "The Battle of Britain" and "The Sinking of the Bismarck." In retrospect, I was drawn not so much by the subject of warfare, but by the way people reacted in tough times. Ordinary people found themselves in