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Commentary Search

  • Cook with me now

    Cooking gets a "Wednesday Addams" amount of enthusiasm from me. It's tedious and time consuming. Standing for hours, sweating a little and crying over onions never seems very fun to me.Although, when I saw a flyer about a free healthy cooking class at the Health and Wellness Center around lunch time

  • Never walk past a problem

    Sometimes the lessons we learn as children prove helpful to our careers. My dad worked for a Fortune 100 company for many years. One day he told me how dozens of the company's leadership had been fired because a low level employee sent a personal email using a company computer. His company had a

  • The right thing to do

    Last week, I took leave to go turkey hunting for the first time in Washington state. I've heard northwestern turkeys were more of a challenge to hunt over the southern/mid-western birds, but I was up for the challenge. However, I must report the score is still zero long beards in the freezer.

  • Parting words: A small few can make a big difference

    When the time came for me to write what would be my final article I thought long and hard about what I wanted to say. I pondered about giving words of wisdom or leaving you with some profound statement to invoke spontaneous deep thinking or perhaps even provide a theoretical perspective on why I

  • Bold, Innovative and Intelligent Risk Takers

    When Lt. Gen. Darren McDew visited Fairchild, I observed briefings by 92nd and 141st Airmen. A repeating theme caught my attention. After Airman 1st Class Jessica Huckabee's Total Force Enterprise and Innovation briefing, the 18th Air Force commander asked how she became an Aircraft Generation

  • Taking charge of your future

    Who is in charge of where your life is headed? Is it you, someone else or no one? If "you" is not the answer, read on. Setting goals is a lesson I learned from my parents early in life. I quickly found that I like having control of my future. At first the goals were small, like attaining a specific

  • A Family of Airmen

    I take being a tanker pilot very seriously. You see, my family depends on it. My brother, Maj. Will O'Brien is a bomber weapons system officer and my brother-in-law, Maj. Kevin Hicok is a fighter pilot. They are both combat-tested aviators and weapons school instructors, but without tanker gas

  • Just do it

    Do you remember when your parents had to drag you inside from playing outdoors? I'm still trying to figure which point in our lives some of us lost the desire to run like the wind to dreading each lap around the track. I think people just dislike PT because it's hard, physical work that requires a

  • Strengthen the ‘Long Blue Line’

    I frequently choke up a bit when I am at a retirement ceremony or going-away function and I hear people reference the "Long Blue Line." For me, it is one of the most reverent terms in reference to our great service. The thought that countless Airmen have served our nation proudly and professionally,

  • Community support

    I'm four months from moving on to my next Air Force adventure. My family and I look forward to the change, but it will be hard to leave Spokane.Although I love my job at survival school, and Fairchild Air Force Base is a team-orientated base, the Spokane community is what we'll miss the most. It's