Part 1 of a two part interview with former chief master sergeant of the Air Force, Bob Gaylor

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Clark Staehle
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  The Marauder Online staff sat down with the fifth chief master sergeant of the Air Force, Bob Gaylor, to discuss the Air Force's current state of affairs. Chief Gaylor served as chief master sergeant of the Air Force from 1975 to 1977, when he provided counsel regarding welfare, utilization and progress of the enlisted corps to then-Secretary of the Air Force John C. Stetson and then-Chiefs of Staff of the Air Force Gen. Davis C. Jones and Gen. Lew Allen Jr. The following is part one of two parts from that interview:

Q: With the number of decreasing personnel in the Air Force, what do you think the impact will be on those left to carry on the mission that took nearly twice as many people to accomplish before? 

Chief Gaylor: There are a couple of phrases that I don't like. I don't like the phrase "Do more with less." I never did care for that because I think you get to the point where you can no longer do more with less, realistically. I don't particularly like the phrase "downsizing," because I think now at this time of engagement, if anything, we need to either maintain the force we have or possibly even increase it. But, I think what's going to be required of each Airman is to probably increase the amount of time and effort that they're putting into their perfection. I see security forces flights working 12 hours instead of eight. I see refueling people putting in additional time. So, I think it's just a time when each person is going to have to extend themselves a little bit. And, that's OK for a spurt, but in the long run, as I say, you can't keep doing that. You know, if we ask someone to run 100 yards, they can run rather rapidly. But if they're going to run 10 miles, they're not able to sustain that pace. We've increased some of the deployments from 90 days to 180. And so obviously we're asking more of our Airmen, and so far they've been able to handle it, to accept it. My concern is whether they'll be able to continue to maintain that pace and that energy.

Q: What are your feelings on the effectiveness of Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century? 

Chief Gaylor: You know what, I think now, and this maybe skirting the question, but I was taught many years ago that there are five resources of management: manpower, money, material, time and space - those shall forever be. We can sit back all day and say, "I wish I had more time, I wish I had more people," but if in fact you don't, it doesn't do much good to wish. 

So what you have to do is ask, "What do I have? What is available to me? How many people do I have? How much time do I have?" and then try to accomplish the mission by effectively utilizing what's available. I think these programs - whatever their fancy titles are - they're designed to maximize the utilization of the resources. 

I think that the intent of privatization and outsourcing and all of these programs is to maximize the utilization of the resources that are available. I think what concerns me is that at a time of conflict - and we are in a conflict - is when you would think that maybe you would consider extending the resources or bringing more in rather than taking them away. But I've seen it. My God - I came in (the Air Force) in 1948, and I recall after (the Korean War) subsided in 1954, you would expect a bit of a downsizing - you know, we're no longer at war! And after Vietnam, once again, you expect that - it's like a rollercoaster ride. But when you're engaged in a conflict, it would seem to me that was the time you'd want to consider either maintaining or increasing the resources that you have to accomplish the mission. So, that's my personal concern right now, that we don't strap our people too severely to where they can't get the job done.

Q: To follow that up, do you think the pendulum will swing back the other way, in terms of money and manning? 

Chief Gaylor: It may very well, but you know, when you speak of a pendulum, it's interesting - it tends to swing from all the way from here to all the way over here. If we could somehow get it to stop somewhere in the middle we'd be better of, but we tend to deal in extremes. We go all the way to here and we say, "We've got too many people! Cut back!" Bam! Then we say "Whoa, we cut too much! Bring them back in!" If we could just get a happy medium or some sensibility and ask, "What is it we need to sustain the great Air Force and the Army and the Navy and the Marine Corps? What do we need that will not only will serve us today, but in the months and years ahead?" 

And the pendulum just swings back and forth. 

And a lot of it depends on who's making the decisions. When you have a change higher up, like (former Secretary of Defense) Donald Rumsfeld leaves and the new guy (Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates) comes in, maybe he sees things a bit differently, so here we go. And that concerns me. I marvel at the great job our military's doing. As a student of management and leadership, I just marvel at the willingness and ability of our forces to accomplish their missions, in many cases without the resources they need. I can keep saying to you, "I'm going to take that away, I'm going to take that away," at some point you've got to say, "Now you've got me to where I can't operate. You've simply got me to where I can't do my job." Then I've got to say, "Well I didn't mean to take you that far, let me restore you a bit."

EDITOR'S NOTE: See part two of Chief Gaylor's interview tomorrow.