What Do You Do Here?

Safety, as a discipline, is arguably one of the easiest concepts to voice and one of the most misunderstood facets of our daily lives in the Air Force. Merriam­Webster’s Dictionary defines safety as “the condition of being safe from undergoing or causing hurt, injury, or loss.†Despite this knowledge, before I began my career as a safety officer, the pilot in me viewed the safety office not as a helping hand but rather as a dreaded “black hat†evaluator—out to fail me somehow on an inspection or investigate me for some possible mistake.

Teaching safety classes to new aircraft commanders and speaking to my peers, I would say that most aircrew members have privately held similar opinions at some point in their careers. I would also venture to say this idea is not limited to just aircrews across the Air Force. We never want to point out our own faults to others, especially those coming to us with very pointed questions about our failures. Outsiders, such as mishap investigators, are generally regarded with suspicion; it is just human nature. These personal mental blocks then contribute to individuals not seeing the bigger picture. When safety findings are released, many folks unfortunately focus on the feeling that a report is blaming an individual as opposed to attempting to stem a system-wide fallacy that may cause a similar accident. Those misconceptions are ever present in our lives while in-garrison, so it is no surprise that safety is even more of a misunderstood beast while in a deployed environment.

I deployed as Chief of Safety in January of 2020. As you know, that was right around the same time the theater heated up tactically, and we felt the pressure immediately. Despite those external challenges, the biggest issue my team faced was trying to reinforce safety’s helping hand persona in preventing the next mishap. I saw many individuals across the area of responsibility fall into the trap of believing that when they left the United States, regulations and procedures designed to ensure their welfare could be disregarded if it meant getting the job done. I unfortunately saw too many accidents that were completely preventable, such as vehicle rollovers due to excessive speed, erratic maneuvering over sand dunes, or electromagnetic radiation exposure because individuals were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Initially, when incidents occurred and we would try to investigate as we had been taught, we were met with hostility or outright questioning of why Safety was involved. We were honestly taken aback. Like the base around us, my safety team came from the Total Force, and I had individuals from nearly every major command represented. To combat the problems we saw, we all had to take a step backward and try to understand what was happening and why Safety was viewed with the preconceived notions I also once had, although we all go through the same training and annual refreshers.

“As we emphasized time and again, the need to ensure personal safety does not change during war or peacetime. No one goes to work with the desire to be injured, and clearly those who skirt procedures to get the job done mean no malice; however, they are introducing a great deal of risk that does not have to be introduced into an already complex and risky situation.”

We finally found success in defeating the expeditionary mindset and the distrust by providing in-depth safety mishap data and having frank conversations, relaying to Airmen and commanders alike that every day lost, every person injured, and every mechanical part broken was doing more damage to our expeditionary effort than the enemy could muster. As we emphasized time and again, the need to ensure personal safety does not change during war or peacetime. No one goes to work with the desire to be injured, and clearly those who skirt procedures to get the job done mean no malice; however, they are introducing a great deal of risk that does not have to be introduced into an already complex and risky situation. Supervisors and commanders need to reinforce the idea of “no undue risk.†When that piece of the error chain failed was when we saw the greatest number of mishaps occur; when it was corrected, the change that took hold was amazing to watch, and we began to see the number of incidents drop.

In addition to the wartime environment in which we found ourselves, 2020 also proved to have other challenges—to personnel and the mission—when COVID-19 hit. On a personal level, one can argue that the measures normally associated with keeping oneself safe on a daily basis do not change during a pandemic. You still need to follow best practices and regulations, and at the end of the day, you still have to listen to your gut feeling of acting when the situation does not feel right. If you fail to heed guidance, you are still risking life or the mission.

Safety itself is thus a double-edged sword. On one side, personal accountability is a must to ensure one’s own well-being. On the other side, the duty of those in actual safety positions is to be the risk management experts and remind others of the lessons of the past to avoid repeat accidents. Air Mobility Command’s “Just Culture,†an atmosphere of trust in which people are encouraged to report essential safety information without fear of reprisal, is the true key to this. As it took me 14 years and many fortunate roles and assignments to truly understand those subtle points, I wrote this article to help save you some years on the learning curve.

As I have stated, everyone in the military understands the first definition of safety and attempts to apply those principles daily to varying degrees of success. What is interesting, however, is that the very next dictionary definition of safety is “a device (as on a weapon) designed to prevent inadvertent or hazardous operation.†I like to think this definition is the true purpose of the Safety Office. Because Airmen are our best weapons, it only makes sense that a protection device is in place to ensure their continued good health should other means fail. That is what I believe the safety discipline is: a safety switch.