3FUniverse
Motivated by the absence of community within his profession, Nick embarked on a mission to create the 3FUniverse, a platform that fosters dialogue and connection. Picture a universe where people share common goals yet remain strangers – Nick set out to change that and forge connections among those operating in the 3F2 orbit. With curiosity as his compass, Nick engages with his guests to uncover fresh insights. So, consider joining the 3FUniverse, where you'll have the chance to hear stories of vulnerability, resilience, and some lighthearted moments as well.
Nick hails from Fort Worth originally and recently earned his Communication degree.
Disclaimer: The appearance of external links on this site doesn’t constitute an official endorsement on behalf of the U.S. Air Force. The podcasts on this site are individually owned and don’t necessarily represent Air Force positions, strategies or opinions.
Disclaimer #2: Any professional, medical, legal or business advice is simply that. Advice. Please seek out a personal relationship with a professional who specializes in these areas. The 3FUniverse podcast is not responsible for any decisions you make following advice taken from this podcast.
3FUniverse
Dan Kephart: The Wake Up Call: Xennials, Millennials and the Air Force Life 🚀☕
Ever wondered about the unique challenges and experiences of belonging to the Zennial/Xennial generation, wedged between the millennial and Gen X generations? Join Dan and I as we navigate our generational identity and discuss the importance of staying abreast with technology in our fast-paced world.
Our insightful chat with Dan Kephart introduces you to the complexities of motivating airmen in a tech school setting. Unravel the significance of KPIs, talent development within the air force and how it all ties back to unit leaders. A little bit later, we delve into the hurdles faced by those who haven't had many PCSs or TDYs and the value of supervisor experience. We also touch upon the necessity of honest feedback to our team, fostering growth and avoiding stagnation.
Lastly, we open up about our personal experiences transitioning out of the Air Force, the accompanying regrets and internal struggles tied to the values held by the Air Force. As we reflect on the significance of upholding the oath of enlistment, we also ponder the possible decline of patriotism and the impact social media may have on the younger generations. From internal struggles related to our values and patriotism to the physiological impacts of caffeine consumption on our wellbeing, join us for this journey filled with personal experiences, honest feedback, and in-depth discussions about technology.
Be a ⭐️ of the 👽 3FUniverse🪐
Created, funded and hosted by Nick Perez 🧼👊🏼
3Funiverse intro and outro theme music by the talented Joshua Paul 👏 🎛
Not an official DoD Podcast
Oh man, okay, I don't know how to start this. I don't know how to start it. All right, you said you're gonna follow my lead, right, yep? I already got a recording, but we'll cut this part out. I gotta do something to calm my nerves just slightly here. Would you like one? No, I'm good, I appreciate it. Though You're a smart guy, you're non-drinking.
Dan Kephart:I do every once in a while just a little bit. One or two We'll put these away for just a second here.
Nick Perez:All right, let's do this. All right, You'll do. Excuse me, I'm gonna turn my podcast voice in a second.
Dan Kephart:it's gonna be a little weird. I don't think so.
Nick Perez:I don't think so.
Nick Perez:I don't think so, all right, welcome back, welcome back. It's been a year resurrecting the three of universe. I have Dan Kephart with me today. We're gonna talk about a lot of random things today. We gotta get it all out there. So, dan, before we do this, how would you like to introduce yourself? What would you want to tell people about yourself? Do you want to get a job or do you want to do something that you like to do? I'm gonna be back. I'll be back. I'm gonna be back. I'm gonna be back. I'm gonna be back. I would be back. What would you want to tell people about yourself?
Dan Kephart:What would I want to tell people about myself? I'm a 3F2, been a 3F2 for 15 years. Yeah, I know a lot about being a 3F2, because that just means I'm old, so that's how I would describe myself.
Nick Perez:He says he's old. He's not actually old. So the thing is, you said you're 41. You just turned 41, though, right? Okay, and I'm 39, and we were actually discussing this the other day about how we are. You say Zennial and I say Xennial, right? So if you're out there, listening is X-E-N-N-I-A-L. So we are in that weird micro generation between generation X and the millennials, and I saw something on Reddit the other day. I don't know if I told you about it, but I so like I want to consider myself more towards the millennial side. But then when people start talking about like Pokemon or like Power Rangers and I watched Power Rangers a little bit with my little brother, right, but like I never got like super into it and like Pokemon, I get that it's a cartoon. I think I was like an art in high school before. It was like popular.
Dan Kephart:So, like what I've read and kind of my take on what the whole Zennial thing is is, we are more Gen X, the millennial piece comes in from the tech piece, right? So like we're able to like do this kind of stuff, like navigate technology, that kind of stuff. To me it's the more the work ethic and we say that like it's not derogatory being millennial from that perspective, just different, right, so more old school kind of train of thought and all that kind of stuff, just able to navigate tech.
Nick Perez:Yeah, and I know you told me about like your wife, how she's like she phones a little bit more, and my wife too, I'm like the techie of the house, like you can tell by being in my man cave here, right? I?
Dan Kephart:got the.
Nick Perez:PS5 and the iMac and all that stuff down here and I'm the only person who touches it. I'm the only person who touches it yeah. But yeah, no, I think you're right. However, maybe I'm just ruined because I've been on Reddit and Newgrounds and like all these old school websites for a long time and so I'm like obsessed. I'm obsessed with technology and I'm always trying to figure out the new stuff. However, when I talk to actual millennials like Josh Paul or Kevin Severy- or Ryan.
Nick Perez:Jetty or Tyler West. Those dudes run circles around me and I feel dumb, Like they're always like posting memes about like Excel and how like it's hard for them to be quiet when someone else is driving.
Dan Kephart:Yeah, you know what I mean. Like when they're driving Excel. Yeah, like we even talked about that. That's why I said that it was like I don't want to be like 60 or 70 years old and just be like I can't do. You know, I just can't do this. You know, like if I can be, if I can keep up with technology enough to be dangerous, like throughout my the rest of my days, like I'm good there.
Nick Perez:Yeah.
Dan Kephart:But it's coming. You know, like I said, we talked to. You know, being down at the senior NCO Academy, it was kind of like my first dip in them into the pool with like AI and using that kind of stuff.
Nick Perez:So yeah it is what it is.
Nick Perez:It's coming, and so you better be ready for it Dude, chat GPT is like the greatest thing, and so I've been using Bing. I know this sounds really weird to say I've been binging it guys. I've been using Bing because their AI assistant uses Chat GPT for Yep. Oh, free dude, yep and you can create images and all types of like it's crazy Yep. So I've been using that a lot, man, and I know that like everyone's like don't put your stuff on there or whatever, and I'm like okay, I get it, I'm not going to put like aircraft numbers and stuff, but yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nick Perez:It does. I think GPT for is like levels above the free open AI stuff.
Dan Kephart:So I haven't done the Bing thing, but we did talk about I use perplexity, which is it is also based off of a Chat GPT for, so yeah, the perplexity was that the education one.
Dan Kephart:I'm not sure. Again, I don't even know it was. You know, one of the dudes that was in my senior NCO Academy class was, you know, he was saying that his wife was doing a PhD and they were telling her that she had to use perplexity, she had to use AI to write her papers. So he kind of gravitated towards that. And again, you know, it's kind of like my first dip in the pool, but so I didn't really pick up on all the nuances of like why that one, as opposed to this one or that one, I don't know, couldn't tell you.
Nick Perez:Wow, okay, so it's just one of the random tools that's out there. Yeah, yep, I have a. So before we go any further, we'll throw out the disclaimer here. Okay, all opinions are respective of the people talking. They do not represent the Department of Defense or the United States Air Force. These are solely our opinions and do not reflect no endorsements. There's no endorsements or hatred or anything like that, so I don't want to get too controversial, but I do feel like it's worth talking about and I see a lot of interesting stuff on LinkedIn.
Nick Perez:I follow a lot of like the Innovator crowd yes, like Air Force innovators right, and I guess my mindset right now is like, like, right now, the EPBs Yep, everybody is like you got to use chat GPT. Yes, I found a lot of fluff in chat GPT. Yes, even if you put in like the rules and you're like, hey, here's the rules, here's the character count, it still spits out a terrible thing. Yep, but we're still doing like these crazy long papers, like at senior in COA, in COA, and I wonder when we're going to catch up and really academia in general right now. Right, like, when are people going to catch up and be like, hey, you know what? We should probably just go ahead and get to the point where, like, yeah, we know these students are using AI to do their papers. Because like, come on, yeah.
Dan Kephart:And you know we talked a little bit about that too, right, like, to what degree should we be using it, especially in a learning environment? When you're talking about, you know, yes, I need you to write a paper and yes, you can use AI, but I still need you to demonstrate like it still needs to be like a measurement piece, right? And to me, like again, when I was using it, it was meant to be for me, like I'm probably one of the least creative guys you'll ever meet, like in the like world. I am like straight by the book, like no imagination whatsoever.
Dan Kephart:So, like to me, that's kind of like like the benefit that I see in it is at least like okay, like help me shape this form, this right, and then I need to give it my own thoughts, my own flavor and so like at least at a bare minimum, like if I'm like I really have no idea, you know, you can, it's pretty cool.
Dan Kephart:Like you can, you know you can feed in rubrics, you can feed in, like you know, checklists and that kind of stuff, and it'll really kind of think through all that stuff and the ones that are hooked up to the web browsers will go out there and kind of do the searching for you. So, in terms of you know, just a starting point, at least a starting point for me, but I enjoy doing that kind of stuff. Like you talk, like we were talking about EPVs too. I don't think I would ever catch myself using AI for an EPV. Like I need to be involved in that and I need to learn that process and make sure that I'm putting the effort into it to get out what I want out of it and I'm not gonna just punt that off to AI.
Nick Perez:Yeah, yeah, I would say I'm extremely frustrated. Okay, I'm extremely frustrated in the process, I'm extremely frustrated with the implementation, and I think it's not just me. I think there's a lot of people out there that would agree with that sentiment, and we talked a little bit about this too, right? So, like everything we say, we've probably already reviewed this at some point, but I feel like I really wanted to go into long form about and that's why I love podcasts too Like it's not just a sound clip, it's like you have as long as you want. You know what I mean, so I do wanna go into it with you. I'm very, very disappointed in the implementation of EPVs and I told you before, you know, I got one email. It had like six attachments and it was like the ALQs and like the cute little infographic thing and you know, like it had, like I think you know, a generic like example or something. Yeah, and that was pretty much it.
Nick Perez:So, going further with my hot take here, my hot take is that not just the Air Force, but I think, just I'm sure, there's corporations that do it too. They're like, hey, here's a big change, and we're just gonna send this email out. Yeah, a, you're assuming that people read it, and B, you're assuming that people understood it, understood it. Yeah, like I. Just I can't do that, man.
Nick Perez:It was kind of like a weird light bulb moment for me recently when I had that happen to me with the EPV. I was like, oh yeah, I was like dude, I need to be like, I need to make sure that I'm actually like circling back and I hate using that term, but I need to be circling back and making sure that we talk about it, not just being like here's your email, guy.
Dan Kephart:Yeah, so I agree with you. I think the reason that we haven't really heard a whole lot is because everybody's still learning, top to bottom, right. Like they came out, they said, hey, this is what we're gonna do, you know. Yeah, you get a couple of lines here and there, and that was really it. You know, they started out with chiefs and I was like, hey, chief, what'd you learn about? You know?
Nick Perez:I was like, ah, we didn't really learn anything. I don't know.
Dan Kephart:I'll tell you you know I'll check in next year. You know it's the same thing with the seniors. You know like, hey, what'd you learn? Like I don't know. Yeah. So you know, like my EPBE, like I tried to really dig into the things that I know are important, right, and some of the things that we've talked about, like the MGA's right, there's this mindset shift that's going towards this is what commanders get graded on, and so the more that I can speak to the things that I do supporting and fitting into those MGA's right.
Dan Kephart:That was kind of the focus. Like the writing piece is gonna come Eventually. We're gonna grow, I think, as a community and learn how to write, or what you know, what we you know, promotion boards, like what you know war boards look, you know want. Just nobody knows. Chiefs don't know, seniors don't know. You know what I mean. Like we're still learning, but I think it'll come around Again. I think the point from you know to get from where we're at to where we're going in the meantime is we need to be focused on painting the picture properly of how what we do impacts what commanders are being expected to do, cause that's what they themselves get graded on.
Nick Perez:That's pretty brilliant. I'm not gonna lie, You're a smart dude man. I think you're right With the especially the UEI kind of of my eyes, a little bit like the MGA stuff or the major graded areas where they call it right, yep, but I just man.
Nick Perez:And then we talked about like UTMs need to shift over and figure out how to make their mark on that too. And I'll say this for the EPBs I had a weird light bulb moment there at night. I was, I couldn't sleep and I was like I was frustrated because one of my tech sergeants was like hey, man, I really need help writing this. And I've had a couple of people write me emails from around the Air Force like, hey, can you give me any kind of pointers? And I'm like I don't know. Yeah, and then I'm, and I even told you the other day I was like, dude, you might as well just write a bullet and then just add words in it.
Dan Kephart:Yeah.
Nick Perez:But like, when I said it, it made sense and I was like that's it, yeah, which sucks, right, because here's the thing we're supposed to be saving time, but yet I feel like we're doing more. Like to me it's like okay, well, if I gotta write a bullet, I'm already wasting all that time making a bullet, and then I gotta add words to it. You know what I mean. Like I don't know.
Dan Kephart:I think it's gonna take more time during the transition, right, because we have been conditioned to write a certain way. Yeah, right, I realized when I put Master On, I was like I don't write half as good as I thought I did. You know, and these are the things that are gonna get people awards and get people promoted Like, I need to pour into this. Right, we're making that transition. I think most people can agree.
Dan Kephart:We spend an awful lot of time trying to figure out quarter and half spacing just to make bullets fit within lines, right, as opposed to, you know, we just need to learn how to write and speak as human beings, and that's why I said, going back to that point, that the important piece is gonna be getting our EPBs to speak to the MGAs, and I mean within the framework of the EPB themselves, the ALQs. Right, you only get a certain amount of space. You're not gonna cover every ALQ, you know, and I think the guidance was like you know, choose two or three. I mean, if you can get three, I think that's amazing, but I think to get three in there, you're probably gonna lose something that's important to one of the other two statements that's in there.
Dan Kephart:But we just have to learn. We just have to learn what that's gonna look like, and I think it will eventually speed up because we're not gonna be worried about. Well, can I use this symbol instead of that? Or you know how can I jazz up, you know how can I shorten this word, or whatever. The case is like QB right, that was an approved acronym you know to be able to use in packages and stuff like that. So we'll get there and I think it will save us time and again, in the meantime, make sure that we're focusing on the things that are important to the people that are gonna be reading it.
Nick Perez:I have a feeling, if you ask the A1C that just got out of tech school, I have a feeling they might be able to write an EPB better than a master sergeant, because they're not conditioned to writing a bullet. Yeah, you know.
Dan Kephart:That's something I thought about, yeah, and you know it kind of was coincidental that it lined up with the timing that I was I was supposed to retire and you get into that mode of writing resumes, even though I know you didn't write yours.
Nick Perez:Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. You know what? Sometimes you gotta pay to play baby, sometimes you gotta pay to play.
Dan Kephart:But, like the majority of me, writing my resume was, I'm literally just gonna take my EPRs and I'm gonna make them read into English terms right, I'm gonna make this speak to, and that's essentially all we're doing is we're making it plain English, just keeping in mind that we stink at speaking and writing plain English right now because we're just not conditioned to do that. That's true.
Nick Perez:That's true, I guess. Okay, epbs all right. I think I wanna move more into griping about our job again. Okay, All right. Chief J is probably like he's like on a smith.
Dan Kephart:He's got a smith waving in the air.
Nick Perez:Like grandpa Simpson over there. Yeah, yeah, man, this is a tough time and man I gotta say A there's too many tech sergeants and B that makes it really hard on our staffs and our senior airmen, because now it's like a stopped up pipe. Yeah, and I'm having a hard time. I'm having a hard time motivating people and I'm a pretty motivational dude, if I do say so myself.
Nick Perez:Yeah, but it's hard, man, I mean. So I guess that was standing. I understand there's certain things that are probably out of Chief J's hands or our career fields hands. When it comes to that, right, the whole Air Force is kind of coming so slow down. Yep, man, I wish, I really do wish that we could get more into talent development. Yes, like can we. And I know that we just revamped all the silliness SOT to TPM, the quarterly SOT to tabs or whatever for maintenance types, right, but I don't know, I don't see the value in it. Yeah, I don't.
Dan Kephart:So I'll make my plug for KPIs again.
Nick Perez:Yeah.
Dan Kephart:Right, and yes, this was something else that we had talked about already. But, you know, something that I've tried to stress to people is that this is a perfect opportunity to show your unit leaders why the things that you do are important to them, and I'll use an example. I don't think I really got to give a couple of good examples, but, like you know, we have in maintenance training, right, and that's where the majority of our people are, but it's super easy in maintenance because we literally have a career field dedicated to all of our aircraft stats. Right, you know our MC rates, our aircraft availability rates, fixed rates, break rates, all that stuff, right? And if we can do a, if we can really dig into what it is that we do and how we impact those things, and we can feed off of those rates that are already being kept, for us that's an easy, easy way to kind of paint that picture. Right. And KPIs are essentially the same thing, right? What we need to do is, you know, since the beginning of time, right, since the beginning of when we were UTMs, it was always like what do you need to do? You need to go to your unit, you need to learn the mission of your unit right and why right? I think KPIs are kind of the why behind that right, I need to understand what's important to my people in my unit and tie what it is that I'm doing to enable them to do it right, because that's what we are we're a force enabler, right. We enable folks to be able to go out and do their jobs. And so if I can lock into those KPIs, if I can lock into those metrics that they are looking at right On the maintenance side it's those, you know the aircraft availability, mc rates, all that stuff you know on the med group you know it's. You know how many patients are they seeing all that kind of stuff? Right, If you can really dig into the metrics that matter to them right and tie the you know, connect the dots between what we do as UTMs and how we enable them to do that, that to me, when they see that with their own two eyes, when our leaders see that with their own two eyes, they're gonna see the value in the UTMs and they're gonna see the value in supporting their training programs right. So, like Chief Mahiki used to say, we're professional tattletales.
Dan Kephart:I always make the comparison between when I was a personelist and being education and training, like people don't typically care. You know our, you know first line supervisors don't necessarily care about that. It's not a priority. Training's not a priority to them, right? Whereas if I'm a personelist and I tell you, hey, like I need you to come and sign your assignment, ripper, guess what your assignment's the hiccup and it's gonna get canceled, like you're gonna be in my office like in 10 seconds, right.
Dan Kephart:But what we need to do is we need to again kind of make that tie to the things that are important to the units and I think that that will, in turn, kind of loosen things up for us as UTMs to make our jobs a little bit easier. To get through to people that says, if you do these things, this is what the end result is going to be for you, right, and realize that with KPIs, you know we can show whether it's moving in the right direction or the wrong direction. You know, and if I'm doing my job as a UTM and things are going south because supervisors and flight chiefs are just kind of blowing off their responsibilities and our KPIs are going down, I can make that correlation to the commander that says listen, this is part of the reason why these metrics are moving in the wrong direction as opposed to the right direction. There was an example similar to that when I was out at inspecting the teabirds, when I was out at NELIS and I didn't know that there was, there was a pretty big crash. I don't know it was 80s or 90s, where they essentially go with blind leadership. They're all flying and they're following number one wherever that number one goes. And he went into the ground and they all went into the ground and the squadron commander for the teabirds said, if you give me an F-16, that will never happen again. And I don't remember what they were flying, right, but it's kind of like that Similar.
Dan Kephart:I don't wanna say obviously we're not flying planes and stuff like that, but if we're able to make that correlation and we're able to show the value in doing that, I think it will garner support from leadership to allow us to kind of do our jobs the way that we should. And, to your point too, right, like really focusing on the talent development piece, I think is important. I think that's where, like we've talked about before, if you're gonna go out into a corporation like they have to make money in their talent development. Otherwise it's a pointless venture and we're just gonna not do it right. And we're not in the business of making money in the military. But If we focus on that and focus on making our folks more efficient, again that shows the value with what we do and I think that will really kind of help start, you know, grease the skids towards, you know, getting traction and making our day-to-day lives a little bit easier. Sorry, I know that was kind of-.
Nick Perez:No, no, it's good.
Dan Kephart:Keep going.
Nick Perez:It's fine. No, it's good, you heard it first. You heard it first on the Three of Universe how you can use KPIs to your advantage, because no one else talks about it, man, yeah, it's not something as-. And I think really, man, we talk about this piece too. Right communication. Yeah, like, I know that Chief J does his all calls, I know that we have quarterly training meetings, we have these base training meetings, we have, you know, I have monthly meetings either, right, but like there's a lot of stuff that's getting missed and it's, I think, a lot of times, man, at our level, you know, like the senior and CEO level, we say some stuff and we just expect everyone to like yeah, we get it.
Nick Perez:And they just go to their office and it's like this perfect world, right. You don't really think about it until later on, when there's a problem, right, and you have a UEI or something and, like your airman's, like I don't even know what that is, and you're like we've talked about this, you know what I mean yeah.
Nick Perez:Yeah, so it's a. I think it's a communication thing too, though, because, like you know, we hear KPIs get talked about, we hear competency model get talked about, but there's no detail behind it, and it's never in a positive connotation.
Dan Kephart:No, right, no not at all.
Dan Kephart:Like anytime I've ever heard people talk about KPIs, it's like I don't even know what to do with that. You know like we're just gonna push them off to the side. Like, no, no, you have a perfect opportunity here to like make your life easier, you know. And again, when we talk about things like promotions, when we talk about things like awards, and we have such a huge opportunity to do that as 3F2s because of the impacts that we have, not just in one work center, one flight within a squadron, but the entire squadron, the entire group in some cases. Right. So that's kind of what.
Dan Kephart:Like I agree with the communication piece, like we it came out and nobody we just didn't know what it was right and so we kind of had to figure that out. And that's why I try to, I try to share that with as many people as I can like yes, it's a little bit of work, right? And and you know there's guidance out there that says you know, work with your unit leaders to kind of figure out what those KPIs are like, take control of that process, be involved in that process. We should know our units well enough to say these are the things that matter to them and therefore they should matter to me. And here's how you know, what I do correlates to those KPIs, for sure, yeah yeah, no, that's, you're right.
Nick Perez:You know some of those I've been thinking about a lot lately as the whole, like the talent development piece. And I end with the budget thing. Right, like I love that you guys were pushing the budget. Yep, I don't think it's a secret, it's on the McT checklist budgets like number two, I think on there, number two, or number three I like that you're pushing the budget and something else that I think.
Nick Perez:I think there's something else that three of twos need to be doing right. So like when I went to the ACC conference for three of twos, man, like I felt like a new man. I was like this is so cool, like I'm around all my peers and like I'm learning so much.
Dan Kephart:Yes, and it's within three days dude, yeah, right, yep.
Nick Perez:Imagine if we could do that every quarter.
Nick Perez:Yeah, imagine just imagine Like it doesn't have to be a long conference. Three days, dude. Tuesday, wednesday, thursday. You get with your peers from around the world or whatever In one room and you get to say, hey, man, we did this for the last quarter and this is what worked and this is what didn't. Here's some KPIs we tried. Here's some. You know what I mean. Like dude, can you imagine the amount of growth that you would have in your NCOs and senior NCOs If you could get them in a room at least once a quarter? Dude Like I and right now is like the perfect time. So if you're listening to the podcast right now, it's a brand new fiscal year you need to start begging for money, right Cause, like I was thinking about it I've been thinking about it for a couple of months, man, and I try to get my guys all the TDW's. I can't, yeah, like anytime we hear something like we got to go, yep. Now they got like an AETC conference and allegedly we're allowed to go. I don't know.
Dan Kephart:I got to ask for the money still, I have a feeling we get shut down.
Nick Perez:But like I'm just trying to get my people out, just out and about, go learn some stuff. Man, they had an air space and cyber conference. I think 9-11, like September 11th Try to get my people with that Didn't work out, but it's like I keep hearing all these different things. I'm like we got to go do that. We got to go do that, cause like I really want it to be. You know, what do we get? We get tech school, we get POI, we get ISD, some of us might get BIC eventually. Some of us might get tech writer and those are great courses. But at the same time, like when you're in a unit doing UTM stuff, I want to know how that actually like. How does that benefit you? You know what I mean.
Dan Kephart:Like I'm not saying they're not, there's some good skills there, yeah, yeah.
Nick Perez:But like I really want UTMs to be like super smart about like all the things Like. I want them to be able to bring stuff back to the unit and when people walk in, they're like hey, I learned this new technique that we can do to in process you or I found this new program that works on Nipper that we can use. You know what I mean? I want them to go out there and get stuff and bring it back, and we're not doing that enough.
Dan Kephart:And you said, you know, like you went to go ask your leadership to do those things and they were like, yeah, we just don't have the money. Whatever you know, and to me that's the importance of the budget, right, that's one aspect of why the budget is important. Right back at Basex, like literally, we had like four or five TD-wise programmed into our budget every year, you know whether it was for a three of two conference or an ACC conference or whatever the case is. And if that money gets programmed it's yours. You know what I mean. Like that's yours to use if we don't have an ACC conference or we don't have a three of two conference. Go out and find other opportunities because, guess what, they can't say no if the money's already there, if it's already given to you guys. So like that's a huge aspect of it. And then we, you know we short sell ourselves to with like there's so many local opportunities right In a lot of places to go to office classes, microsoft office classes, I mean, and there's such a healthy appetite right now to do things different with accelerate change or lose right To where you know. I had this conversation with the, with the comptroller folks here, where they're having an issue with kind of the way that their, their tech school is funneling out and it's like go out and find like think so far outside the box that like nobody would even like have thought of that idea and if you can make it make sense to the Air Force, like there is a healthy appetite to try different things right now. Right, so you know, when it like almost every single checklist I've ever looked at since I've been out inspecting has been NA, oh, that's NA, we don't. You know the RA handles it all that kind of stuff right, like that's great.
Dan Kephart:But again, kind of going back to like the KPIs and stuff like that, take control right, and even when you know, when we were talking about three or two this morning at the Alpery it, you know, one of the things that I told them was you have to run the program or it will run you right, and those are some of the aspects that I'm talking about right, like run your KPIs, be in part, you know, of that program, be involved in the budget, be involved in that process, right, and palm for money up front, you know, have things like a euphor and have it teed up, because when the end of the year comes around, the people that get the money are the people that can push the button the quickest right, so we just lose out on so many opportunities because we're just, we just kind of like lay back and say, well, the RA does it or you know whatever, right, the training program as a whole in a squadron will run you if you don't run it yourself, and we just need to and to your point, right, the reason that we're not really I think we're not inherently good at doing that is because we don't have the ability to really develop within our communities as much as we, as I would like to see and, I think, as much as we could, right, and we, you know, something you had mentioned was, you know, even doing kind of like a regional conference.
Dan Kephart:You know, like, I mean, look at this UEI, right, we have Grand Forks here. We had our augmentee up from Fargo, who's also, you know, that's also, you know, a similar mission, right. And then I'm getting ready to head out to Minot, right, like having those minds like together and even to understand some of like the geographical challenges that are kind of going on. It's huge Like just the ability to kind of have that cross talk and that kind of stuff and be around our own people, and I've advocated for it. I think it's a phenomenal idea. You know, like, I'll say this until I retire. I'll say this until you know, this career field goes away or whatever. I think that we should be a pipeline career field. I really do.
Dan Kephart:There's no reason why we can't run an operation just like NPFs do, just like finances do, things like that right. The argument is well, you know, we've been through the training program before. You know, and that's part of you know, like the understanding, or that we're in these positions where you know an A1C would have to be doing like a tab or something like that. If you go to the NPF, you know and I just had this happen when my assignment dropped and it was like you know, I need you guys to do this and this and this so I can get started on my orders, because I'm PCSing in seven weeks and I'm TDY for three of those weeks, right, and the guy's like oh, yeah, when our database gets updated, you know whatever, whatever you know. It's like oh, you're not, like you're not hearing me out, you know what I mean. Like I can't wait for you guys to do like you know. And he's like well, do you have any PPCs? And it's like listen, you're asking me if I have any PPCs. I came to you before my. I got my assignment rip log into Mil-PDS right and these are supposed to be the experts on this stuff.
Dan Kephart:How many times has that do PCS? He has no idea what he's doing when it comes to PCSs Never done it before and yet he's the subject matter expert and we and he's allowed to operate as if he understands and knows everything that there is to know about that stuff. Finance is the same way. You go to file a travel voucher after you PCS or you go to file a travel voucher after you've been TDY and there's a one or two striper in there. How many TDYs have they gone on? How many PCSs have they had? How experienced are they? They are the subject matter experts, right. So for me I say that and I really truly advocate for like a consolidated wing training entity right, where we can come together as a community, where we can grow from airmen on up just like everybody else in the Air Force, and then when we get to staff and tech sergeants, like we know what we're doing, right, and when we're master sergeants, we've supervised before, right and we've written packages and been involved in that kind of stuff right.
Dan Kephart:We're way behind the curve. Yeah, and it's like to me. The one hitch that people seem to like really hang their hat on with that idea is well, how bad would it be to have an A1C have to do the OJT briefing or a TPM? 90% of our job is banging away at a keyboard all day right, and again tons of other career fields in the Air Force do that. A1cs can bang away at the keyboard. They can maintain spreadsheets.
Dan Kephart:When I went to personnel tech school, literally the first week of it was fundamentals, where it's nothing but Microsoft Office, right, like that's great, learning how to do Word and Excel and all that kind of stuff. Let them bang away at the keyboards and let the staff sergeants, as they're growing and maturing, and the tech sergeants be the face of the franchise and be the ones that are out there with the commanders understanding their programs and doing things like the TPMs and the OJT briefings. So to me it's kind of like I don't think we'll ever get there, but I feel like that's something that we miss as a community and it causes us, as we advance in rank, to miss a lot out on those opportunities that are out there.
Nick Perez:Yeah, no, I think you're right. I do like that. Our career field comes from retraining. I think it brings a lot of weird diversity and strange attitudes, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Right, but I don't know, maybe it could be a mixed match. You know, maybe you still have retraining in, like at the NCO level or something, yeah, but I could see a pipeline slash retrain program working really well. Sure, and I think you're right, I think we don't get the supervisor in so like this. Last two years I've been supervising right, but before that, right Exactly, come on, like I supervise it POL. When I was a staff sergeant and a senior airman for years and then I got in this career field, I was like, wow, I don't have to supervise anyone, this is the best. But then you, it's like a muscle man, you don't use it, you lose it. So it's like all of a sudden I had troops again, you know, and it's like what am I doing? Like hold on to my strata.
Dan Kephart:Yeah, and it was used. I gotta use my strata now and it's like I have like senior airman and stuff.
Nick Perez:Like I remember, like the first week I took over at Com, this poor girl, she was a personalist and she got pulled over and she didn't have like a registration or something. And I was just in awe I was like how do you not have a registration? Like what do you mean? You?
Dan Kephart:know what I mean, like to me.
Nick Perez:That's like a basic, like necessity. Like you have a registration and you have a driver's license you know what I mean. Like those are the two things you need if a cop pulls you over. And this person else was basically just like oh, I don't even know how to like, where do I even get that? I was like what do you mean? Where do you get it? Like the DMV. You know what I mean. Like I was like it was just like a weird you know, and it's like I didn't know how to react Like I blew up.
Nick Perez:you know what I mean, and I probably shouldn't have blown up, but I blew up a little bit Cause I was like this is like what am I dealing with here? Like it turns out she was a great person. Else she was fantastic. She just some of the personal stuff was like too much. You know what I mean.
Dan Kephart:Like, and it was like you know, when I had to coach her along and it was a great experience, but it was also very difficult.
Nick Perez:You know like especially as they're not leading troops for X years. You know what I mean. And then it's like you get into your little, your little like pocket of like information. You're like wait a minute, hold on what note? Who do I call if this happens?
Dan Kephart:You know what I mean.
Nick Perez:Like yeah, yeah.
Dan Kephart:And you know, I think what ends up happening is right. We get lulled into a little bit of a slumber because you know again, kind of the way that our structure is. It's like, oh well, you know, we're all if I had a dime for every time I heard, you know, we're all NCOs here, we're all grown adults like, yeah, I hear what you're saying, right, but we are all like fallible human beings, right, and so it's kind of like we can't just let people get to staff and tech and like let go of the wheel and just be like all right, well, you know, but you guys are staffs now, you guys are techs. You know like no, it, we have to be there, like again, I mean, we're one of the so few career fields that are so like set off on their island and and and maybe we get.
Dan Kephart:I mean, you know that we talk about things like you know, when was the last time you had a feedback? And it's like, oh my gosh, I, you know what I mean, and it's like that's a foul. Yeah, that's a foul. We owe it to our people to to give them honest feedback and help them grow. Otherwise they are gonna stay in the same spot, and for us, I think, as a community, I think that's part of what leads to us and it feeds into, you know, the stagnation and just kind of the burnout, and we're just like, ah what, you know, where do I go from here? And it's like, you know, if somebody was closer to be able to kind of take you, you know, and actually do the things that you're that we're supposed to do as leaders, as supervisors, I think we would be a little bit better off for it.
Dan Kephart:No, I don't disagree at all, and I'm not, I'm not advocating, I'm not saying that's easy, right Given the circumstances, right we are. We are busy people, but I'm just saying that I think that the value in doing those things would be, would pay dividends.
Nick Perez:It does. No, it definitely does, man. I gave feedbacks to all mine. I know I missed one person, but like it's okay, we figured it out. But I gave feedbacks to all mine and now I'm actually do it for midterms with all my staffs so. I gotta do that here in like the next couple weeks. But it's good to have that, because if you don't get that feedback, then you think no one cares. You're just like, well, whatever, if they don't care, I don't care. You know what?
Dan Kephart:I mean, and you know, when it starts with establishing the standards, right, Because it's like you know I can't remember where I heard it, but you know it was years ago where you know, the thought was or whatever it was that I heard was like nobody wakes up, not many people wake up and say I'm gonna do a really crappy job at work today.
Dan Kephart:I mean, I'm sure there are certain people that do, but but, generally speaking, like most people don't do that, like they don't approach our days to say like I'm gonna just see how crappy I can make this day, Right, and so that falls on like supervisors to say, okay, if I know you want to do a good job, I know you're here to give effort, right, Let me help you meet the marks by letting you know what those marks are right. If we're not doing that and then we're not giving them feedback to see how close they are to hitting those marks or not, it's, I mean, we're never gonna get anywhere. It's, everything is gonna be a disaster. We're just gonna be, you know, on the road without a map. Yeah, so you know, that's always kind of stuck with me, you know what I mean, yeah, nobody, nobody wakes up.
Dan Kephart:Most people don't wake up and say I'm gonna have a really crappy day at work today.
Nick Perez:Yeah, no, I agree. I think in my career, dude, I've met a lot of people that like they just need a little bit of feedback. They just needed a little bit of honest feedback. Like, even if it's like yo, your work sucks, bro. Like your work sucks, like what are we doing? You know what I mean? Like you can turn into like a, you can kind of turn it around a little bit, you know, and be like dude, your work sucks. But like are you doing this on purpose?
Dan Kephart:You know what I mean.
Nick Perez:Like you could. You could ask, you know what I mean, and you just, you never know the answer. You're gonna get, dude, because I've had. I've had troops that were like oh yeah, my, you know, my mom's sick, my mom's been sick for months and I, you know, I just have nothing.
Dan Kephart:You know what I mean.
Nick Perez:Like there's people out there that will tell you some stuff like that and you're like oh yeah oh you know, oh, this makes sense.
Dan Kephart:You know I mean like, and now you know like, okay, now I know how I can pull alongside you and help you through that, right. And then people know you care, you know, and I tell people all the time, like, you know, some of this, I've been very blessed throughout my career. But you know, I've had the opportunity I've had people walk into my office and tell me that they lost a pregnancy, that their marriage was ending. You know, and not that any of those things are good, but it was. It made me feel good because I knew that I had relationships with those people, that they trusted me enough to say those things right, and that that is like that's kind of the root of it, right, If I'm able to, if I'm able to build that relationship with you, I can help, I can help you, we can. You can trust me that I'm gonna. I'm gonna help you make it through those things.
Nick Perez:Yeah, yeah, I've had a couple people tell me some stuff like that and I was like, oh wow, I was like you trust me, that's good, Like that's a good thing. You know what I mean. It makes you feel good. Yeah, yeah, I know, when two of my troops made staff, I told you this Saturday they made staff and they like texted me like first thing.
Dan Kephart:Yeah, well, baby, he's like I was all excited, like a proud father, like I was, like yo, I was like that's cool, Like, and I got invited to both of their.
Nick Perez:ALS dinners so it was a nice like full circle type of thing yeah.
Dan Kephart:Yeah.
Nick Perez:Maybe feel good man, but you know, it's little things like that that I think I can carry with me outside of the military to.
Dan Kephart:Yeah, I get a sense that that's not very common on the outside. Yeah, we talk about things in general terms and while we're in the military a lot of stuff doesn't make sense. But when we talk about, like, the culture that we have, when we talk about the relationships that we have, I get a sense you know, kind of based on on the transition that I was making that that's not common. Yeah, Outside.
Nick Perez:Yeah, that's, that's unfortunate, and I I'm not naive. I'm not naive to it, you know what I mean. But I also I also do think that it matters like where you work. Like I think that also, like I think people like, yeah, there's just no culture, nobody hangs out after work, nobody is like close, and I'm like I'm not saying that's not a I'm sure as majority of the time, right, because I think most people they're literally just there to get through the day.
Dan Kephart:Yeah.
Nick Perez:And go home. Yeah, they don't even care. But it's like I'm sure that there's certain companies where you're like you know you're real close to somebody, or even your team, and you go out for drinks on Friday or you know, I mean you bull, yeah, you BS and you make jokes and yeah you have fun together?
Dan Kephart:Yeah, I mean, and.
Nick Perez:I, I think it's out there. I think you just have to find it. Yes, and yeah, I'm kind of interested in like doing a startup, okay, working at a startup, like one of these tech startups dude. Yeah, it's a, I think what's the website? It's shiftorg or something like that. It's a skill bridge, for it's a skill bridge opportunity for startup tech companies. Okay, and I was like yo that's kind of fire.
Nick Perez:Yeah, like my wife was like why not do it? Like, why not? Like what's the worst? That happens? The company goes under. Yeah, like after a couple of years or even a year or whatever, who cares. Like you have that on your resume and you had that experience with like a hungry, yeah, excited. You know what I mean. Like yeah, because you can tell, like if, in my opinion, I would assume that culture would be very like let's go, let's go.
Dan Kephart:Like yeah, yeah you know what I mean? No, they want to be successful, yeah, yeah.
Dan Kephart:I don't know man, it's something I've been throwing around, yeah, so you know we were talking a little bit about my, about my mentor, right, shameless plug for ACP American corporate partners. You know, I was matched with someone in talent acquisition and at first I was like, yeah, I don't. I mean, I personally don't want to do talent acquisition, like certainly not. But then I was like, wait a minute, this person is going to be the exact person that's going to be looking at my resume, they're going to be looking at like from a hiring perspective, right. And so I was like, oh my gosh, like yes, that is absolutely the person that I want to be my mentor. And she's been fantastic. And I told her, you know, like one of the areas that we kind of went through was like where do you want to work? And it's like I don't know, I don't know how to answer that question. You know, like where do I want to work? Do I want to work at like a place like you know, some people get out and they're like, oh, I want to work at Amazon, or you know, do you know work at AWS, you know, whatever? And it's like to me, I'm not, I'm not stove piped into one industry, right, we can, we can do talent development pretty much anywhere. And so she was like, okay, well, you know, what I would suggest you do is like, look, start doing informational interviews to figure out kind of like culture of companies, you know. And she told me her own story about how she essentially had kind of done like a lateral move out of a company that she had previously worked for into another one because she simply liked the environment of the company. You know the culture a little bit more and so that's the thing you know. So, yeah, but but again, you know, working with like mentors and stuff like that can help identify that kind of stuff. And so like that's definitely I feel like that's the right kind of mindset for you to have going into.
Dan Kephart:It is like, yeah, and again I kind of go back to you know the, the previous like we had the retired three F2 webcast or whatever it was, and you know one of them, I mean outright said that she, you know, lowballed herself and you know, like we just don't know how to value what it is that we do. And it's like, do we need to swing for the fences, like if you know what you're doing as a training manager and outside the realm of like just maintaining spreadsheets and stuff like that. Like we can make money on the outside, we can make. We can make some pretty decent money on the outside for sure. So you know, culture again is kind of one of those things like go out and find you know what you know. If you have an industry that you're interested in or what you know, startups and stuff like that, you know what I mean. Like let that be your starting place and have fun with it, like shoot for the stars.
Nick Perez:Yeah, I wouldn't even mind like doing academia, like working for a university or something, but I don't have my master's, so like, or a PhD, like I have a bachelor's, so it's like I don't know, but it's like, yeah, academia would be cool, like academia scares me, yeah, academia scares me, yeah.
Dan Kephart:So I went to seminary for a while and you know it's, it really has a sense of you always have to be like advancing, always have to be like what? When was the last time you wrote a book, you know right? Well, I just my book came out, you know, and it's like, yeah, it has a different feel. It's not for me. I'm not saying it's it's, it's not for everybody, but yeah, when you said academia, boy, if you can, if you can get into that and enjoy it, man, good on you.
Nick Perez:Yeah, you're right. I guess my problem is I don't want something that. I'll say this for the moment is because it's just that when you're dealing with your career force, like as much as I am, like tired of the Air Force, I'm ready to move on. I do understand I'm not naive that it's pretty open-ended. A lot of times, like most of the time, like in the Air Force, they're just like, yeah, figure out how to do it. I love that. I Love. I love like when people don't give me defined yes, like I love just be. Like, alright, let's just do some silly. Let's do some silly stuff and see what sticks. Like yeah, why not? Yeah, who cares what happens? Yeah, what's the worst? That happens. Like if we tried this one technique and it doesn't work.
Dan Kephart:We shoot for it again, yeah that's it.
Nick Perez:Yeah, but like I don't know, I love that and I'm worried that I'm never gonna find that again. I'm really worried that I'm never gonna find that kind of creative Open-endedness somewhere else.
Dan Kephart:Yeah don't be so. Again. I don't want to speak for people, but one of the individuals that was on that retired 3f2 webinar was she said she had gotten a job at Baylor and essentially it was kind of like a new position that they were that they were hiring for. And so I've got to imagine again I don't know for a fact but I've got to imagine that she probably had some leeway in there to kind of go and again shape the program right. But even going back to like my skill bridge when I started that and the reason that I told you I wanted to stay on with that Contract company was like right now I Worked for them part-time.
Dan Kephart:Everything's been cleared through, legal, so yeah go ahead and say that right like but, like my day-to-day tasks are, we are Standing up, we are moving into instructional based gaming, right, or game-based learning there's different verbiage out there not gamification, right? We talked about that. But, dude, I mean it's literally like we are gonna swing for the fences. We are gonna, like make this look like whatever we want to and we've been, I've been given that free reign like go out, find industry leading. You know gaming technology and we have programmers that are gonna learn how to do that kind of stuff. And like, from an instructional perspective, like how can we bend the rules of physics, you know? To just like get outside the box, like, yeah, so there are opportunities out there. You know that I know of for a fact, right, yeah, yeah.
Dan Kephart:And again, you know, going back to AI, do like technology is here that we can't even wrap our minds around what like the capabilities are gonna be. So like and Again, companies are kind of starting to get on board with that so like change is going to come. That mindset, I think, is gonna come especially to the business arena, sooner rather than later, because it has to. Yeah, if businesses don't adopt those kind of rules, those mindsets, they're not gonna be in business for long because somebody else will do it. Yeah, yeah. So that's what I said, man, like I Truly believe you're gonna make, you're gonna make some people some money and I definitely feel like you're gonna be able to find that kind of that kind of Environment that you're looking for.
Nick Perez:Yeah, man, yeah, I, you know I love the, the camaraderie of the Air Force. Yeah, I, you know there's a lot to be said for the Air Force, not, you know, I have my disagreements right, mm-hmm, but like I'm grateful for what I've been given in the opportunity, like how much I've had. I've had a lot of success, full but yeah, success as well. But yeah, I'm gonna miss the camaraderie for sure, and I my problem is I'm kind of like you know, there's like all those dudes that were like you know, black rifle, coffee shirts and stuff and they're like Super obsessed like article art 15 t-shirts or like rager up or whatever, and it's like I'm just not.
Nick Perez:I'm just not into it, like it just kind of like turns me off a little bit and it's like I'm worried about and I've seen it like when I go back to Texas, like I'll go on leave and I'll go back home the DFW and there's like all these nerds they go to, like you know, they go into restaurants wearing these goofy military t-shirts and I'm just like, hey, I'm not gonna be like that, but be, I'm like man, like how do you hang out with other vets that are not?
Nick Perez:I'm gonna have to search out Air Force nerds like Can I hang out with some one Delta 7s please? Cuz I just don't. I don't know, man, I'm just not part of that culture like that just doesn't. Yeah, doesn't do it for me, doesn't do it for me, man, it's not my thing. But that's one of the things they say is like, when you retire they say to like, find like a club or something that you can Be a part of, you know?
Dan Kephart:me yeah, so you kind of keep that, that sense of Stuff, I get it. But yeah, I mean, and there are. There are some people that need that. There are other people that just like, yeah, I'm ready to walk out the door and I don't. I don't need to, I don't need to see that again the rest of my days, like yeah.
Nick Perez:I'm definitely gonna find a gym. Yeah, number one thing I want to find, like one of those hardcore gyms, dude like yeah.
Dan Kephart:I? You know, when people look at you, I'm sure they think that needs some more muscle. He needs to spend some more time in the gym.
Nick Perez:I love, I love going to the gym and you don't know anybody and within a couple of weeks you already, like you, kind of know each other a little bit, like you're like familiar, you know. Like I've seen you, you know me, like you give them the nod you know, yeah, you start building those little miniature friendships in there, like I love that man, that's, that's like my favorite. So, yeah, I love the gym but and I have to go to the gym. It's the only the only thing that keeps me sane.
Nick Perez:Yes besides my anxiety pills. Yeah, I just I have to have both man, yeah, yeah after.
Dan Kephart:So, yeah, man you're similar in that way too.
Nick Perez:Yeah, yeah yeah, the let's see. Oh, so I, since we've been gone, since this show has been gone almost an entire year, if not longer. I think November was like the last time I published anything. So November of last year, by the way, if you're listening I Decided to retire again, this time for good, and now I will be out of the military by 1 August of 2024, or August 1st for normal people. It's a shame.
Nick Perez:Yeah, I know, I know, and, like I, I think I've made a lot of people frustrated, like really frustrated, and I was like Maybe, maybe there's some other things I don't know. But you know, in some of the backstory that I'll I'll say is that I got orders to somewhere and I just felt like I was already so stressed out with this job that I was like there's no way I can take a job up at staff level. I was just there's no way because, like, I've heard nothing, but like I haven't heard. I won't say I haven't heard negative things necessarily, but like and I know it's different is what I've been told, but yeah, I've also been told is just extremely, extremely busy.
Nick Perez:I don't know, I just didn't think I could do it and then, on top of it, I was like man, I just I Want to go somewhere where I want to go. Yeah, like my whole career dude has been like you go here, you go here and it's worked out like Grand Forks Really can't complain. The winters are horrible, they are Awful and you're missing. Allegedly is gonna start snowing on the 20th, I know I saw that.
Dan Kephart:I was like so like you are like man, you what was today? Today is the 19th. I think it's supposed to start snowing, like next Thursday. Yeah, so like I think they may have moved it up, but like, yeah, it's fine, I don't 20 second, 20 thirds I'm like that.
Nick Perez:And when it starts snowing here, it's gonna never stop. Like you are barely missing it. You're barely.
Dan Kephart:Missing it. I'm gonna be up here in a couple of years.
Nick Perez:Yeah, you hit me back. Hit me back in March, I will see how you feel about that.
Dan Kephart:Yeah, I bet I'm telling you, man, but you know like that speaks to right. Every everybody knows like you'll know when it's time. Yeah right, you'll know when it's time. You know when I hit the button. I'll say this right to not a lot of people know this the same day last year that I found out I didn't make senior, after being stradded two years in a row and getting caught the year before in the gray zone. The same day, my commander told me that they were not gonna sign my letter recommendation for OTS either. So what? So that was, that was a pretty rough row. That was a pretty rough day.
Dan Kephart:You know, I've always felt like I have More to give, right, like I came in at 18, you know, like I did my, I did my time and it's like I'm not, like I'm not that broken physically. The the things that I'm seeing now with like the change and, like I said, the healthy appetite to just like Bend the rules and like just throw everything to the wind, like that excites me, like I like doing that kind of stuff and I just like I it was just kind of like, well, you know, I mean, apparently, you know this is not my future. You know, like it is what it is. You know, like I'm not gonna be, I'm not gonna be like disgruntled about it, like I, even after I had pushed the button, like I told my wife, like I, I just like shortitis is not a thing with me, like I just don't have that attitude when I PCS, like I'm working and I'm given a hundred percent up until the day that I leave Every, everywhere I go. But I still had more to give. You know, and and so it was kind of like a bitter pill for me to swallow and and like I knew that, like I knew that, like I'm just gonna do this, but you know it is what it is like. Screw the Air Force. You know, I was kind of like, yeah, a little ticked off, but you know, generally speaking, like you'll know, right, yeah, he said, you know, you know when you want something different, you know when it's time to move on, and, and that was that's. It can be a hard pill to swallow.
Dan Kephart:You know, when I, when I got up to the IG, I went in as a senior select and they were doing like record reviews and they were doing like you know, strat boards and stuff like that, but like like kind of like mid-term strat boards, like, hey, if you want to get stratted, like these are the things that you kind of need to work on. And I was like, yeah, I want to get down on that, like I want to, I want to give people the opportunity to. You know, that I didn't have when I was, you know, when I was growing up, and I was like shocked I was so shocked by how many people Weren't interested in getting promoted, like, and I was like, but you're a master sergeant, you know, like why aren't you interested in making senior? Like who doesn't want to make senior? And so that was that was a shock to me, it was an eye-opener, it really was. And like I've really kind of embraced that, I think, just to say like, okay, well, you know, not everybody is gonna have that motivation, and that's okay, like there's nothing wrong with that, yeah, and so you know, I think that should be just an encouragement, is like, when the time comes and you know it and you've checked all the boxes, and like you know, family says it's time to go, and that was part of it for me, was that like my wife was super supportive.
Dan Kephart:And I tell people, like if I made a truly selfish decision. I would have walked out the door, I would have just I would have retired, I would have walked off and just kind of let it be. But my wife loves being, you know, a part of the military and you know we talked a little bit about the whole like making senior thing and like the, the number one non-select knows who they are. You know, like I, that's not who I am. And then to have the tremendous opportunities that I've had to like Shape and mentor people in our career field is like huge and I'm so blessed to have had that opportunity.
Dan Kephart:But yeah, I was ready to, I was ready to walk out the door, I really was, and so it took, you know, support and you know it was kind of cool too, because my commander at the time was like I'm really glad that you're pulling your retirement and I'm really glad that the Air Force got it right this time around. So but again, like you know, the point is is that when things, when things are right, like you'll know and and and everybody, like Nobody can be mad at you for, like you know, like yeah, it kind of thinks that you're leaving and you know we were talking about like who's gonna take this stuff over? Like you know, it is what it is. You know at that point, like you paid your dues, like you got to, you know you got to take care of what you got to take care of, and and so.
Dan Kephart:but you're gonna be, I'm telling you, dude, you're gonna, you're gonna make somebody some some money.
Nick Perez:Yeah, no, I appreciate it. Thanks for the kudos. And I said this on the other podcast I did there a day, not the three of universe, but I was on a shout out to Lori Norris Lessons for lessons learned for vets podcast. Fantastic podcast. You can never listen to it. You should listen to it. But I was on it there a day and I told her the same thing that I'm gonna tell you for me.
Nick Perez:I had a lot of regret in retiring a second time. I was like, damn, I think I may have made a. Did I make a mistake? Like I could have gone to Lackland, I could have, you know. I mean like I could have done this, I could have done that. And then, as I see all the other, like Puzzle pieces come together. It's like they sent Nicole Pope down there. I'm like man Pope would have been my boss again. Like, yeah, damn, like she's awesome. You know what I mean, yeah, but then you know, on the other side of that too, I have a lot of internal strife with some of the things that I feel like are double-speak or Stuff that I just don't agree with anymore you know, I told you the story earlier about kind of like I Basically got onto a kid for for like nuts, you know, not standing it at attention yeah, for colors, right, because it's like ingrained in me you know, and.
Nick Perez:But but on the flip side, you know, I Feel like and I got to be careful with my words here but I feel like we're at this point now where we're like what do we value? What do we values in Air Force? Right, and it's like what we value. People are really good at their job. Well, you shouldn't worry about the way they look and we should relax the standards and, you know, as long as they're good at the job, right.
Nick Perez:And it's like part of me was like that makes a lot of sense. Like I want to be lethal. Like if China comes knocking, dude, we should be lethal, like, yeah, I don't care if you have long hair or a ponytail or a man bun, I don't care. Like, can we go to China? Can you help us fight China? That's what we, that's what we should care about, right, yeah, but it's like parts of me and yet we're still kind of preaching some of that. You know we're it's like. No, we got to make sure we have standards and bring back standards and correct them. For that and it's like part of me. I'm like like I have that built into me because I'm old, old school, right. But it's like, at the same time, I'm like I thought we were looking forward, like I thought we were, I thought we were all looking forward and like that's what we were doing.
Nick Perez:And there's other initiatives that I don't agree with and you know, I feel like as a military member, you're not allowed to talk about politics, like you're not really allowed to say, oh I, I I support this or I support that right, and I Drop memes on my Facebook that may hint a certain way, right, but I can't be outright like this is what I think, yeah, and that frustrates me Because I feel like you know, and it's this is a tell as old as time and it's not like I'm saying anything that's false, but, like military members in general, the military is used as a political tool, for good or for bad. There uses a political tool, and I just can't, yeah, it's just not part of my values anymore, so it's time for me to. So we throw the deuces. I got to go like, yeah, cuz I just don't, I just don't align with it anymore.
Nick Perez:I love being a good NCO, good soon. So I follow all the core values, I follow the rules, I'm loyal, I do my job really well, but, yeah, there's a lot of pieces of my heart that just don't. It's hard for me to be quiet, you know me. It's hard for me to stand by and not Be passionate about those things you know.
Dan Kephart:You know, and, as I'm like, as I think about what you're talking about, right, like I Can see both sides of that coin. Right, like, do we need standards? We can say, yeah, you know, like the things that you know, the changes that are coming down the pike, you know, but do we need to, you know, be able to do basic things? Like you know, standard attention for you know, for colors and stuff like that. Like, yes, we do. But you know, like the flip side of that same coin is, like To me it's a little, I'm gonna say, scary. Like, if you look at some of like the studies that are out there, like patriotism is becoming less and less of a thing, yeah, right, and I think, without that and without kind of like that baseline, even even within the standards that we have, I Think we could end up going in a direction that you know, like we don't really want to go.
Dan Kephart:When you talk about lethality and that kind of stuff, like are you truly yeah, you swore an oath, but are you, are you truly committed to what you're, what it is that you're actually saying in that oath? Right, you know, and I Re-enlisted a few months ago and I I made it a point for the first time in my career I actually memorized the oath because it was like you know, if you asked me, you know on a regular daylight, but what is it that you actually swore your oath for? I'm not sure I could have told you. You know everything that was in it and Again, I think it's.
Dan Kephart:I'm a little worried, I'm a little scared about whether or not the mentality that it takes to truly swear that oath is being Engrained into a younger generation, that's that's gonna be able to commit to something like that. So it's kind of like, you know, I, we need to be lethal, and that's why I was saying, as you were saying, that it's such a hard position to consider, because we need to be lethal. And it's like we hear things about space force is gonna. I'm not saying it's happening, but rumors have been said that space force is just gonna get away from fitness standards at all. Because it's like we need nerdy people that sit behind desks all day and who cares if they're 50 pounds overweight? It just doesn't matter, right, cause those are the people that like I want sharp people banged away at that keyboard, right.
Nick Perez:This is gonna be a great sound clip when someone takes your words completely out of context.
Dan Kephart:I'm sure we need nerdy, fat people to bang on the keyboard, but I mean, but like that's true, yeah, right, it's true, right and so Come on, man, but do they have the underlying principles ingrained in them that says I am willing to commit to whatever it is that I need to do to uphold and support and defend the constitution of the United States? Yeah, it's becoming less and less of an important thing as we age out.
Nick Perez:Yeah, I do think, and I have some deep talks with a couple of NCOs that I know but I think right now we're in a lull. I say Garrison, I just say we're a Garrison force man. I've said it to you before and it has a little bit of a negative connotation, like the way I throw it out there, because it truly means that we're a not fighting force right now, like there's no real fight for us right now. Don't get me wrong. There is things happening around the world, right, but like right now we're not in that war mode, we're ramping up I guess quotation marks, right you could say that and it's not like none of the stuff I'm saying is like off-sec, but it's like we're ramping up, right, but we're a Garrison force right now.
Nick Perez:So it's like where is the, where's the intensity? You don't see it, you don't see the intensity. And then, with the generational thing, right, I don't know if it's a generational thing, if it's a cultural thing across America, whatever I think it's dormant, I think it's dormant man. I do think this is just my general opinion. I think that you know that patriotism is somewhat dormant because there's nothing right now that's happening, but, like you imagine, like the coastline getting hit by stuff right Like I feel like people are gonna wake up very quickly and be like I really like my freedom, I like my. You know what I mean?
Dan Kephart:Yeah yeah, but you know like that's such a dangerous thought, right, like we shouldn't need another September 11th for that to happen, right, like I remember there was a, there was I think it was like a Budweiser commercial or something like that that was came out around. You know, shortly thereafter September 11th, where it was like you know it was a shot, just a still video of like a shot down you know Main Street, usa, where it's like just row houses, right, and it said, like you know, the terrorists of 9-11 tried to change America, you know whatever, and then it kind of fades to black and then it opens back up and every it's the same shot. You know the row houses, but every single one has an American flag, you know like, hanging outside and they were like well, they succeeded. Yeah, it's just kind of a scary thought, I guess, to say like I don't want it to come to that.
Dan Kephart:You know, like when I joined the military, I came in before September 11th and I came in like a stupid, ignorant kid, thinking like the military is gonna be absolutely fine for me to, you know, not have to worry about doing anything crazy because we just I say just like eight years we were moved from the Gulf War and it was, like, you know, every 20, 30 years, you know, like we end up usually doing something pretty big and you know not a big deal, and then you know, a year later, you know I, yeah, here we are, September 11th. You know what?
Nick Perez:I mean.
Dan Kephart:And it's like who would have ever thought that? You know, look at, like, what's going on in Israel right now, you know, like Hamas came out and they said, like you guys thought that we were just kind of like resting on our laurels and that we were, like, you know, just kind of playing nice with everybody. You know, we've been planning to do this for years, yeah, for years. And so, yeah, I think it just it bothers me a little bit that like it just shouldn't have to take something like that to have that sense of patriotism like boil back up to the top, Like we're not a perfect country. I get that. I had the opportunity when I was down at the at the senior NCO Academy, to go to the Legacy Museum and it's a dark place to be. It's a really dark place to be, but it's necessary, right? We reflect on those things and then we reflect on moving forward, right, what does it look like to move forward?
Dan Kephart:And so I don't think it's bad for us to say that we should still be proud of the United States of America, right? Even in light of the things that have happened over the last couple of years. And I feel like that's, you know, that's kind of that piece that says, I don't know, maybe it's dormant. I hope it's dormant, but I also hope it's not, you know, it doesn't take another September 11th to like bring it back to life.
Nick Perez:I think unfortunately, because of our geographic location, we're just insulated. We're super insulated from like danger really.
Dan Kephart:Like for what it is. You know what I mean.
Nick Perez:Like I think that's another part of it, and I also think that social media doesn't help. Like you know, you have influencers or tech talkers or whoever right.
Dan Kephart:The fact that we are just buried in social media right Allows us to disconnect from everything that's going on around us.
Nick Perez:And yeah, yeah, no, it's so, and I think that part is a little bit worrisome. Like social media and I think especially for younger people, that really kind of like gets me. But I think that's also where like being a good parent comes into play is like you know. I tell my kids like you know, I love my kids watch YouTube, you know, but like I'm in the room, like cause I don't trust a single thing on that TV.
Nick Perez:You know what I mean. Like I don't trust it, I don't trust it at all. And like they play games on their iPad and they request the game and the little approval comes to me, you know, and I look through it and I'm like what company made this? Is this made in China?
Dan Kephart:Like, does it use your camera, does it? You know what I mean. Like I don't trust it, man. Yeah, like, yeah, I definitely there, definitely needs to be that piece into it. But something that I read not that long ago that was pretty interesting is that they're they're starting to understand that, you know, like it's almost becoming an addiction and that it needs to be like talked about kind of like as an addiction for some people. Obviously, right, and we need to realize the dangers that kind of go along with that and the preventative measures that we need to take. And along those lines, right, my 13 year old doesn't have a phone, like oh, wow, yeah he's, I mean, and it's for that reason Like there's not much good that's out there, like he's got a smart watch.
Dan Kephart:So he can call me if he's got something that's going on or whatever the case is, but I mean the Gabby watch or whatever it is he's got. It's a Gizmo from Verizon, but similar, you know, similar, yeah, similar thing, yeah.
Nick Perez:Yeah, no, it's the thing that really I think I've said this on the podcast, so forgive me if I have but the thing that scares me, dude, is like kids can't get away, yeah, like if they have a phone or if they have social media, like they literally can't escape if they're being bullied, like they can't escape it.
Nick Perez:Cause like what do kids do man? Imagine me and you, we had freaking like landlines, right yeah. And like when I got home from school, like high school especially, I was on the phone 24 seven with girls or my friends or whatever you know, and I, my mom, would pick up the line to get off the phone.
Dan Kephart:I want to use it. You know what I mean.
Nick Perez:Like it is like, but like kids. Now it's the same thing to get home and they log on to Facebook or whatever, TikTok or Instagram, whatever the heck it is that they use. I don't know, man, I feel like a boomer saying it, but it's like whatever they're using Snapchat right, Like I don't know, but they're getting on there and I guarantee you they're doing the exact same thing as we did with those phones, except in a different format.
Dan Kephart:Yeah, well, you know what it's come.
Dan Kephart:It's kind of come full circle right, where I think I think enough bad stuff has happened, unfortunately, that you know, like parents as a whole, and again, just kind of like as a society, we're realizing that like we need to be a little bit more careful with what you know we're allowing our kids to see and just kind of how, like how something as innocent as you know, like a messaging app or whatever the case might be, can turn into right, you know, can lead someone down the road of doing something Disastrous.
Dan Kephart:So, yeah, but you know, and to your point too right, and to your point too right, like when we were young, if it was like, oh, I don't want to, you know, like I don't want to be bullied, it's like, okay, well, I'm not, I'm just, you know, if, like, I'm having it out with one of my friends or whatever the case is, like I'm just gonna not answer the phone, or I'm just gonna tell my mom, like, yeah, I'm not here, or whatever, you know, or even as a, even as a younger adult, when we still had landlines, it was like I'm just gonna leave it off the hook, like I don't want to talk to anybody right now, you know. But it's not. It's not just a phone anymore, it's a computer, we're on it for everything, and so it really is hard to get away from that.
Nick Perez:Dude, I'm on Facebook and Instagram all day.
Dan Kephart:When I'm not working. I'm like I'm not scared of it.
Nick Perez:I'm not scared of it and, like I have like a, I have a group chat with.
Nick Perez:you know five or six fellow UTMs that we're always randomly chatting about you know, either work stuff or how our kids are doing, or you know, just relationship stuff, right, and then I have a whole page where there's like 12 different group chats going at any given time about working out or eating right, or you know the culture or whatever. Like it's just, it's wild and it's awesome and I love it Cause like I just I just gravitate towards all that, like I just feel connected, you know, but it's also exhausting, absolutely. It's also exhausting cause I feel like I have to be present all the time, all the time, yep. So like I think, with anything right, it's like moderation, like you just gotta take a, you gotta take a step back and be like all right, I gotta take a break. Like this is too much.
Dan Kephart:Yeah, I think we just need to be aware, we just need to have that self-awareness. It says like, okay, I've reached my limit, whatever that limit really is. We need to be honest with ourselves and say, okay, this is not helping me, this is not impacting me in a positive way.
Nick Perez:Yeah, and so I, during the work day, I try to like mute it and like put music on instead, because otherwise, if I start getting in that rabbit hole, dude, like he's not coming back, I'm done Like I'm not gonna get anything done for the next 30 minutes, like, and I like look over, I'm like, oh wait, what am I doing?
Dan Kephart:Like, uh, yep, so yeah, it's like I'm almost a complete opposite, where you know like a lot of people listen to music and that kind of stuff. I'm gonna be the weird guy Like if I need to get something done, I'm going old school and I'm just putting my EPs in Like I don't wanna hear anything except the sound of my tinnitus, and then you know I'm just gonna get in the zone. I mean, I did that all through school too, right, my bachelor's and my grad degree. But you know it's like I yeah, I'm not a music doesn't like help focus me. I need to like I just need to be quiet and like plug in, and you know, but if music works, man, that's what you need to do.
Nick Perez:Yeah, you cracked me up, dude. You cracked me up, you were like oh, I don't drink caffeine and I was like what I can't. That's what's happening here. I can't.
Dan Kephart:It's not like I have anything against caffeine. Caffeine has something against me. Yeah, you know, like I just can't do it, you know what it comes down to is that I think my, like, my body's just had enough. Like I literally like I was drinking coffee in high school and like you know, staying up until you know.
Dan Kephart:We would go. We had a 24 hour old school, 24 hour diner back home and like I mean we would go up, we would go and just drink coffee until like two o'clock in the morning and have gravy fries and stuff like that.
Nick Perez:Oh, you were like Northern New.
Dan Kephart:York? No, I was. I'm Northeast PA. Oh kind of that.
Nick Perez:Yeah, yeah, it's essentially the same, the same region. But yeah, Is that close to?
Dan Kephart:Buffalo. Buffalo's like Northwest. So I think we were. I mean, I went to Buffalo a couple of times. I think we were probably like six or seven hours from Buffalo.
Nick Perez:That's a ways, yeah.
Dan Kephart:But pretty much straight north of Philly, like like an hour and a half ish north of Philly, the Pocono Mountains absolutely gorgeous, but out in the sticks, yeah. So but yeah, I just, and then you know like when I, when I joined, I mean it was all caffeine all the time.
Dan Kephart:I would probably drink four or five red bulls a day and proof, like you know just, we kind of talk you kind of shared a little bit earlier too about you know kind of like mental health and that kind of stuff and and I didn't realize how how much mental health is tied just to your physical health too, and my mental health was, it had gotten to the point where it was like affecting me physically, yeah, and I didn't even realize it. So, yeah, I mean, it just got to the point where it was like you have to stop consuming caffeine. And now, if I do like, you know, like Pepsi makes like seven and a half ounce cans. Like it's got like 35 milligrams of caffeine, like I'm good for a week. What?
Nick Perez:Yeah.
Dan Kephart:Wow, yeah, that's incredible, you know it's funny.
Nick Perez:I had a friend who he cut out caffeine for like a month and he told me he's like, dude, it's so weird. He's like when you drink caffeine it's like you get high, like yeah, he's like it does weird stuff to your body when you take it for the first time after being out of your system for so long, and I was like what. Yeah, I don't know if I can do it Like yeah, and that's funny. I went to my doctor their day and she was like how much caffeine would you say you can?
Nick Perez:consume today, and I was like she was like no really. And I was like, oh no, let's not.
Dan Kephart:Yeah, let's not. Yeah, we're not going to measure this. We're not going to measure this in milligrams, we're going to measure this in grams.
Nick Perez:I was like let's not and say we did. You know what I mean. I was like oh yeah, I guess I do. Yeah, I do consume a lot. I didn't realize how much I was actually consuming until I had to list out everything I do in a day.
Dan Kephart:And at this point I don't miss it. I mean everything I do. But, like I said, I have to go to the gym. I have to as best I can, I think, bare minimum. I need seven hours of sleep, if I can get eight. That's what I'm shooting for is eight hours of sleep Because I have to, because I can't. If I have afternoon crash, I'm done, I'm out. I'll see you guys later. But I mean, it's all natural I can't do caffeine, that's cool though it's not bad.
Nick Perez:I mean, that's commendable. At least you know that about yourself, because a lot of people don't care at all. Yeah, I don't have an issue sleeping. I don't have issues sleeping when I drink a ton of caffeine. I don't have an issue sleeping. But if I did, I'd be like, oh, I should probably cut out caffeine. You know what I mean. I should probably cut out caffeine now.
Dan Kephart:You know what I mean. Yeah, I mean, like I said, I don't want to understate it, but it really took a toll on my body physically. So I'll kind of give a little bit of the story. But I was so stressed out and I didn't really realize it that it was causing a physiological response in my body. Where you talk about things like tachycardia and all that kind of stuff. They thought I was having heart attacks and stuff like that. And this was five years ago, so I would have been like 36-ish and they couldn't figure it out, didn't know what was going on. I saw the cardiologists, I saw neurologists, I saw a GI doc, I saw a rheumatologist. They were just like, yeah, I don't know what to tell you. It ended up going away all the issues that I was having. So I was in the ER back in 17. I was in the ER five or six times over the course of four months and then it kind of reared its head again in 2019, where I went to the ER eight times in two months. What? And they just couldn't figure out what was going on and it turned out like we were talking about the whole. It was anxiety. It took another probably three years after that to figure out that it was.
Dan Kephart:There are some underlying factors, it's not just anxiety, but it had such a huge impact on my physiological well-being. There was one instance where we were driving from Idaho back down to Texas when I was stationed at Dias, and we're out in the middle of nowhere, wyoming, and I'm just sitting there cruising it's probably like 9 o'clock at night or something like that and I'm sitting in the car driving and my heart rate shot up to 130. Yeah, that's dangerous. I've been in the ER a couple of times. In the ER my blood pressure is 160 over 100. That's stroke level kind of stuff. So I just lots of lifestyle changes. But yeah, and we talked about too. That's why I would encourage you to go see, get second opinions when it comes to stuff like that too.
Nick Perez:Yeah, definitely no, that's good. I have weird. First couple of days you were here, I wasn't that stressed. I was like it's all good, it's just whatever it's going to get through it right. And then today we're done with it. And today I was tripping. Like I was just anxiety just slammed into me and I was like what is wrong?
Dan Kephart:with me.
Nick Perez:We're eating lunch, just chilling, and I'm freaking out Like for what, for what, and I'm even telling myself why Stop it. You know what I mean, but physically I feel like, oh god, like duck under the table type of you know what I mean, and that's exactly what I'm talking about.
Dan Kephart:Why do I feel like, yeah, you know what I?
Nick Perez:mean, so I don't know man.
Dan Kephart:Mental health is important.
Nick Perez:I didn't even have caffeine at that point. I think I had some coffee in the morning, but that was noon or one o'clock. We went to lunch, so it's like.
Dan Kephart:And again. I mean you know, that's just a piece of it. And that's what I say. It's all mental health related. But, yeah, caffeine definitely doesn't help. But it was the same thing, like my wife knows, like she tells people all the time. I don't feel stressed in my mind, it just manifests physiologically.
Nick Perez:Yeah, that's why I go to the gym every day, or as much as I can like. At least five or six times a week I'll try to go to the gym. I really don't believe in off days. An off day is like a day that I didn't plan well enough to go to the gym.
Nick Perez:basically I just don't believe in it. I get that you need rest, but if I don't get moving around the gym and sweating dude, I'm going to have a bad day mentally. I'm not very functional. If I don't, I have to do it. So, yeah, I'm pretty much the same way. Yeah, man, what else would you like to do? You have an opportunity this is a golden opportunity to get whatever you want off of your chest. You can say whatever you want within reason.
Dan Kephart:Within reason you can say whatever you want.
Nick Perez:No, let me take that back. You can say things within reason. Do you have anything that you want to put out there? Do you want to say thank you to anybody? Do you want to say wow, this really sucks. Let me tell you about this. Do you know? Is there anything that you think needs to be heard?
Dan Kephart:I guess, Well, first of all, there's tons of thanks out there. I've been very blessed throughout my career to have exceptional leaders in my life. Some of them are retired. I think of Chief McEwen and I know Chief Sampson is still out there. She's at Barg Stale. She's getting ready. Actually she's going to be my functional when I get to my nut because she's down at Barg Stale. I went to tech school with her. I have had some bumps along the way right and her and Chief McEwen he's a retired 2A. They were very gracious to me as I learned how to be a senior NCO. So career-wise them.
Dan Kephart:My very first personnel supervisor taught me the importance of knowing your stuff right and we talked about that when we met with the UTMs this morning. You have to know your stuff. Yeah, you know. When we talk about living on an island and being a staff sergeant running the commander's program and having to own it in front of flight chiefs and stuff like that, your credibility comes from. How well do you know what it is that you do right?
Dan Kephart:I've told commanders maintenance commanders when I was assigned to my officer in MOSes like you don't write my EPR. And there's a reason you don't write my EPR it's because I'm gonna tell you that your baby is ugly, right, and we're gonna get through this. I'm gonna put some lipstick on the pig not that I would actually do that but we're gonna make this better, right? I've told flight chiefs, I've told chief seniors, whatever that the sheer fact that I'm having this conversation with you right now is a courtesy that I don't need to extend to you because I work for the commander, right? But you can only do those things if you know what you're talking about, if you know what you're doing, if you go out and you execute those things and you make yourself valuable, right, you have to build your credibility.
Dan Kephart:And then I'll say this too my wife and I got married in April of 2007. Two months later, I was in Korea without her, and so, from the very beginning, she has been there for me and she has supported me. Right now, I am out gallivanting the United States and just like pouring into our three F2s, and she's home homeschooling two rambunctious boys. She is one of the greatest homemakers I've ever met in my entire life the greatest and she is prepping for a PCS in six weeks, and I'm TDY three times between now and then.
Nick Perez:And going to Puerto Rico.
Dan Kephart:Yeah, I mean, I do get to go to Puerto Rico. There's that.
Nick Perez:You should probably take your wife with you if you can Put the boys, get the boys a babysitter or something. But like you might want to do, that I don't know.
Dan Kephart:And then, like I mentioned too, she, when I made senior she was like all aboard the train like driving. She was in the engine doing her thing because she wanted to stay. She always said that she never really wanted anything to do with the military. She had an uncle that was, I think, in the Air Force and she was like I don't ever want to be involved in the military, but she loves it, and she told me when I retired that it didn't sit well with her.
Dan Kephart:She wasn't done. So, yeah, I love my wife Sarah. She's a tremendous mother. I couldn't do the things that I do without her support, and I mean that, like, even doing things like this, like being able to come out and do the traveling I love, love doing it. I love being able to share my experiences with other 3F2s, because I know that it's a grind, I know it can be a grind. I've been there, done that right, and so I love to help when I can, and we kind of talked about that when I was at the ACC conference. That is my style of inspecting. That is what I want to do as an inspector, as someone that has the badge and the capability to like, can I come in here and just like write all kinds of crazy stuff up? Yeah, absolutely I could. But coming in here and just stepping on everybody's toes is not gonna make us better and it's not gonna motivate our 3F2s, right. And so when we sat down again this morning, you know, like I told them, I just want you guys to be encouraged, like, just be encouraged. You guys have a tremendous opportunity right and I'll offer this last piece as kind of like support for that.
Dan Kephart:In 2012, 2011,. It was December 2011,. I was busted down straight from tech to staff After I got an article 15, it was not suspended. My commander was not kidding around. I've been blessed. I'm very blessed. Four months later, they remitted my punishment. I got my stripe back, but it took me a long time to recover from that. It really did.
Dan Kephart:And I had a unique opportunity to work in a kind of like an operation squadron. It wasn't, I wasn't at an OG, but I was doing ISD stuff that on the A3 side of the staff as a tech sergeant and I was. I got a forced distribution. I got a must promote one year for master and I probably had like the third lowest board score out of anybody that year. The next year, I had a promote now and my board score went up like 12 points, 12 and a half points. The next year, my article 15 fell off. I had a promote now and I made master by 73.
Dan Kephart:In an organization where I was competing against career enlisted aviators, evaluators, people that were working in flying training units, teaching other people how to fly and actually flying missions on AWACS you know what I'm saying Like heavy duty stuff, and I was able to compete with that. The other individual the year that I made master was a 3F2 in our squadron, got the must promote and we both made master. So I say those things because you know we hear things like a one mistake Air Force. But it's not true and I'm proof of that and again, I've had tremendous support throughout my days. But those are the things if you take care of business like, you can make a difference, you can get promoted, you can win a wars. It doesn't matter what unit you're in. We say it all the time. I get that they're kind of one offs right, like if you're in a unit and your leadership just straight up doesn't care, like yeah, I understand that right, we're not always gonna be in a position to where we're gonna be able to do things like that. But I put master on.
Dan Kephart:I got another unique opportunity where I actually got to be a DNI in an MTS and that's a position that doesn't typically get filled by a 3M2. But I had done development before and it was a very enjoyable experience right To be able to work that piece of it and to have that experience. And then, like when I had the opportunity to come around to different places and I'm sitting down with the MTS supers, it's like, okay, this is what you need to look for, this is what we need to look for. I'm asking these questions to help guide them into kind of looking at the things that we as 3F2s wouldn't know because we've never sat in that seat right. So again, I was blessed, I was stratted my first time out for senior and I got caught in the gray zone so I missed it by half a point. I went down, I PCS'd, so that was out of Fighter Wing. I PCS'd up to ACC. I worked on the A3 at the staff.
Dan Kephart:I was stratted again and again I missed it by a half. I got caught in the gray zone and that was like I said, that was the year where I was like I'm just pushing the button and I went to my leadership and we kind of talked about it. You know, there's kind of that unwritten rule, right, and I'm gonna kind of vocalize the unwritten rule because I think it's important for our younger folks to hear it in that and it's not like a set in stone thing. But there's what they call no harm when it comes to strats, where if you PCS with a strat or with a forced distribution, the gaining unit usually tries to honor those stratifications or forced distributions, because it can not always, but it can hurt you from a board perspective for promotions, right. So I was stratted again at the ACC level.
Dan Kephart:I missed it again and I told them after I'd made that decision in retire I said please don't strat me, like I'm just gonna ride out and be done and everything. So we say you know, a lot of times I think kind of tongue in cheek, everything happens for a reason. I believe everything happens for a good reason. I would put an asterisk in there. Sometimes we just don't know what the good is. And so I told them I said please don't strat me, like I don't wanna be stratted, I don't wanna take this away from anybody anymore. And they did, they did not strat me, they honored that. And the guy who did get the strat, who I beat out the year before for the strat, made it by half a point and he was on one of his last cracks and he was a career enlisted aviator. So I was super cool cause I knew the dude and he's a great guy, tony Allevi. So I and I was super, super excited. I think his line number was like seven and then I ended up making senior by quite a bit, and so that was after.
Dan Kephart:And one thing I didn't explain was there was again when I kind of talk about my leadership and how they were kind of gracious with me, I did actually get marked down on one of my EPRs as a master sergeant and again, to be able to overcome those things, right, so we can live in a world as UTMs that say like everything is gray and the outlook is poor and things are just terrible. But I would just, I would challenge that mindset right. Yes, promotions are slowing down, I get that, but I would agree. I think that there is benefit to that right that says there's benefits to having a little bit more experience. And again, I wish we had more experience as supervisors in our career field. I wish we had some more experience in some things that we're not gonna get experience in, but it's not.
Dan Kephart:It's never fun to be on the receiving end of like pass over right, celebrating pass over again within a year. But there are opportunities out there and I think we need to take advantage of them and you can be successful in those arenas. You can. You're never down and out when it comes to things like that. And again, I've been very blessed. I believe this is the path that God has had me on for a really long time and I just was stupid and naive to it. But we have tremendous, tremendous opportunities to do good things and to reap the rewards of those good things, and that's why I try not to I just try not to get stuck in a mindset that is so cynical all the time or so negative all the time about things Like we talked about like KPIs, everybody's like oh KPIs, like ah, you know, and it's like no, look at things from a positive light and you can see, like, the importance of those things.
Dan Kephart:Right, and we've talked a lot of you know too about you know it's hard for us to do that sometimes because the messaging isn't there or we're not. You know we're not translating that into like why does this matter to me at this level? But when we seek those things out, when we think about those things and really try to figure them out, I think it opens doors, it unlocks locks. That affords us opportunities to succeed and to make a name for ourselves. So that's kind of my take on it, you know, you know I go back to you, know my previous personnel supervisor when he was like man, you gotta know what you're doing. And you know we I had just retrained, I was only in personnel for like a year with him as my supervisor, but we had a big inspection and he asked the supervisor, the inspectors, to come down to our unit because he wanted them to look at us. And we nailed that inspection and it really really opened my eyes to like the importance of just knowing what you're doing and demonstrating that to other people.
Dan Kephart:Right, you can sit back, you can be cynical, you can kind of just like and I'm not saying that burnout's not a thing. Right, again, we're all humans. Right, I said I hate hearing like, oh, we're all NCOs, we're all grown adults. But you know, I think if we focus, if we just shift our mindsets a little bit, I think it can help us kind of get past some of that stuff. Right, yes, my learning is garbage right now. My training is garbage right now. No offense, chief, but they are.
Dan Kephart:Control what you can control, right, and you can control the way that you present yourself to your leadership and you can know what you're doing or you cannot know what you're doing, but take advantage of the opportunities that we have. And even things like straight hard bus or non-suspended, you know, demotions can be overcome, and so I always try to share that as like a positive note, like be encouraged, right, if you go out there with the right mindset, there's so much opportunity you almost have to work not to take advantage of those things. So that's kind of yeah, that's kind of like you know what it was that I wanted to share, like I like sharing a little bit about like my journey, my story. I believe it was a God-ordained path but, like you know, to be able to overcome those things like get a demotion and four months later it's almost unheard of to get your punishment remitted, and a big reason why they did that was because I made myself valuable. The Air Force knew that I was valuable and I was actually coming up on the end of my list. So if they didn't do that, I would have had to separate it 12 years. I wouldn't be here, and so that's why I say like that's just not the path that I was on.
Dan Kephart:Tremendous, tremendous opportunity I always just try to share, you know, a word of encouragement with our folks. Things can be, you know, kind of crappy from day to day, but if you grind on the right things you'll be able to make some progress. Make things not suck so much. And I know you said you wanted to talk a little bit about kind of like the day to day and that was that's kind of like my take on it. Right, run your program, don't let your program run. You Shape your program, you know, take control of it, and I think some of those things will kind of start to melt away in terms of like burnout and all that kind of stuff.
Nick Perez:Yeah, no, thanks for being the light man, thanks for being the light, cause it's, it's a few and far between of people who are the light versus the people who are like the dark bringers, you know, like the. I didn't watch Harry Potter, but what are those? What are those black swing those?
Nick Perez:those ghostly thing, the death eaters man, like I feel like the death eaters are like the negativity that that's just constantly floating around right, and I like to, I like to have like a little middle ground, like where I'm. I'm realistic, I'm somewhat hopeful, but I'm cynical sometimes cause I'm like I've seen this before. You know what I mean. I've seen this dance, but thanks for being the light man. Yeah, I really appreciate you and you know I got inspected by you this week and I don't hate you. I don't hate you by any means. You know what I mean and I think that hopefully this interview will let people know that you are human. You know when you're not, you're not out to get them when you come by. You know what I mean.
Dan Kephart:So yeah, sometimes I really just don't like wearing the badge, I really don't like people just get like super uptight, you know cause I'm there and it's like listen, I get it, but you know, I said it at the conference because I really meant it, like I'm not there to like smash people in the, in the toe and like give them black eyes and stuff like that. It just doesn't do anybody any good. You know like I want to see people there taking notes, like a ton of people did where they're like running out of post-its and they're running out of like space on their notebook to like write stuff down. Yeah, you know like I want to help teach and and and again. You know, I think about. I think about your one guy who's like hand jamming spreadsheets and it's like it's like please, it's wild.
Dan Kephart:It's wild, we, we and I guess maybe that'll be my my parting shot too is right, like, like I said to the, to the folks this morning, to, whatever your biggest gripe is, whatever your biggest rock is, whatever the the biggest pain point in your side is, reach out and ask people and figure out a solution to that, because chances are someone's already figured that out or is aware of what's going on and is trying to figure something out too. But don't ever assume like oh well, I just figured, that was the way we do it. Don't ever think that. Don't ever think like I've made my living on doing things according to, like the way that I do things, Like I just I've realized like I do things a little bit different and that's okay.
Dan Kephart:Don't ever do something sitting here thinking like this is horrendous, because you know like we've always done it this way, Do it different, and you know like also too, in the same breath, right? Don't ever I say don't ever find yourself staring at a blank Word document or a blank Excel spreadsheet, because there is something out there that somebody has created a long time ago that can help you, and so just let that be a progression, right, Go to work, figure out what it is that's your biggest pain point. Crack that nut and move on to the next biggest problem that you have. And crack that nut, Reach out to people, solve those problems and things will start to smooth out. But if you're sitting there and you're like, oh my gosh, why am I doing this? Or whatever, like ask that question legitimately, like, why am I doing it this way? Can you do it a different way? Like figure that out, and again that'll kind of like it should hopefully make things a little bit easier for our folks on a day to day basis.
Nick Perez:Yeah, no, appreciate the parting words, man. Yeah, I think we gotta wrap it up.
Dan Kephart:Yeah, it's been a hot minute. Yeah, no.
Nick Perez:We're like I don't know how to listen to this, oh my gosh.
Dan Kephart:All right, dude, I appreciate you.
Nick Perez:Thank you yeah.
