Transitions in military service – call to active duty, relocation or other events – can be challenging. Service members presented with such a transition while in mental health treatment may need extra resources. To help meet this need, the inTransition program is launching six public service announcements to educate warriors, health care providers and family members about its coaching resources.

The PSAs provide an overview of what the inTransition program can provide to each audience and how to contact the program for more information:

* ”Maze”: Explains how service members can navigate the switch to a new mental health care provider when experiencing a change in status

* “Insights-Providers”: Addresses the important role of healthcare providers as they help service members maintain continuity of care when they encounter a change in status

* “Insights- Family Members”: Discusses, from the family member perspective, how inTransition helped loved ones maintain their mental health care treatment during changes in status

When transitions including deployment or permanent change of station occur, it’s important to help make sure our nation’s service members have the right support systems in place. For those receiving treatment for psychological health concerns, the inTransition Coaching and Support Program offers support as they move between health care systems or providers. This support helps them effectively navigate changes and maintain mission readiness.

InTransition coaches are master’s-level behavioral health clinicians who understand today’s military culture and issues. They can provide telephone coaching on how to change providers at the time of transfer or discharge; provide referral support and new provider follow-up; and provide crisis intervention when necessary. They understand and respect the privacy of service members and veterans. Coaches are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and are accessible from any location. Please visit www.health.mil/intransition/PSA.aspx to view the PSAs or to learn more about the inTransition program.

For more information on the inTransition Program, please visit www.health.mil/inTransition or call their confidential, toll-free number at 800-424-7877.

In December of 2010, I was one of three Airmen tasked by my commander, Lt. Col. Bryan Richardson, 89th Communications Squadron commander, to brief my 200-member squadron on the importance of what I thought being a good wingman meant. If you could only imagine my reaction when I found out my commander had challenged me with a task so large. It made me feel important as an Airman to have that responsibility. It even brought value to me as a wingman, to know that my leadership wanted to hear my opinion.

I began to think. I thought about my life before and during my Air Force career. I thought of my family, who thankfully was always there for me. I thought of my friends, peers, and leaders, but there was one day I just couldn’t get out of my head.

During the fall of 2008, I had the quietest day of my Air Force career. I remember it like it was yesterday. That day nobody spoke, we had our mission to focus on. We began with the morning brief, sat at our consoles and started our morning radio checks. It was painful to see all the held back tears in my fellow Airmen’s eyes. It was only hours prior that one of our wingmen had lost his life to a motorcycle accident. We all knew he was never coming back. I felt sad and out of place. I was practically the newest Airman to the squadron. I didn’t know what to say or how to react. So I said nothing.

After going over that painful memory over and over again, I wanted to go back and tell them all that they can lean on me. I wanted to help them through the terrible ordeal that occurred. To this day I wish my actions would have reflected what I think a wingman truly is. The following is what I said to my squadron …

“Each and every person is a wingman. Whether in your past or present, you have opened yourself up to someone in a time of need. You have made someone laugh or helped someone in pain. For some, a wingman can be your spouse or child or your parent. For others, your wingman can be your fellow Airmen, your neighbor or even the pizza guy that delivers to your dorm every night. We are all wingmen.

You don’t have to be physically strong or even highly educated to be a wingman. You don’t have to go to a special class or sit through another 20-session Computer Based Training on how to be a wingman. You just have to be you.

Some may not be that wingman for a particular person when another is, and that’s okay. Everyone is different, everyone has different needs. The main thing you have to know about being a wingman is that you don’t always have to be the hero. Sometimes you have to sit and just listen. Try to be the best you can be and, at the end of the day, don’t forget to give yourself a pat on the back.

A key aspect of being a wingman is to help yourself before helping others. This might seem selfish, but if you don’t help yourself first you will not be able to help your fellow wingman to the best of your ability. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Everyone needs a shoulder to lean on at one point in their life. You don’t always have to be the wingman every time. Be strong and open minded and you will come to realize that everyone needs a wingman.

Whether you are in a bad relationship or maybe someone close has passed on, you may need a helping hand. During hard times, many people feel it is their duty to act strong and keep their bearing, when in all honesty, they may not feel that way. But that doesn’t mean you shut everyone out. As wingmen, we are like family. We naturally seek fellow camaraderie between our Airmen. We want that emotional acceptance to help raise our spirits.

You develop a certain bond between the men and women you meet throughout your life. These bonds are almost like adopting a new brother or sister, or even a parent. Someone you know will always care about you. Someone who might have seen you at your very worst, but is still there to pull you up by your boot straps or lend a shoulder to get you through any troubles…someone like a fellow wingman.

In conclusion, I was given the task on what I think a wingman is. Looking back, I realize that each and every person has a different definition of a wingman. In my eyes, the word wingman shouldn’t be so much defined, as it should be honored. I don’t believe it should be a duty to be a wingman, but a moral responsibility in the hearts of every man and woman reading this today. It should be one of the many traditions that the Air Force holds – not only to our country but to ourselves.” Thank you.

All too often, Airmen muffle their complaints, questions and concerns, venting to other Airmen and others who are unable to affect change.  They think that it may be better to suffer in silence rather than address things that really matter to them because they feel as though their voices may not be heard due to the lack of stripes on their shoulders.

Upon arrival to Andrews a few months ago, I had a few problems with my dorm room. I addressed them with  dorm management on numerous occasions but continued to see no change.  When I spoke with other Airmen, a few stated that they’d been waiting for problems to be addressed in their dorms for quite some time and to “take a number.”

When I met with my first sergeant, he asked how things were going and how was I adjusting to life on Andrews. I seized the opportunity to address my concerns about my dorm.

He looked into my work orders and took down a few notes and the next morning I began to receive calls about the statuses of my work orders.

Within two weeks, my room received all the maintenance that I requested.

Sometimes being in the junior enlisted tier, makes Airmen feel as though they have no power, but there is power in using the resources that we have been provided to get things done.

Your chain of command is your single, most powerful tool. We may not have the stripes to make the changes, but we have leaders  whose duties include ensuring that we have all we need to be effective, productive Airmen.

New media is a powerful communication tool that has revolutionized the way people across the globe interact with one another. It is no wonder then, that the U.S. military has recognized its vast potential for connecting and communicating with servicemembers, their families, retirees and the general public. In light of this revolution, Andrews Air Force Base opened up its government personal computer systems to allow Andrews members access to social media sites earlier this year. Since then, units from Joint Base Andrews have collectively set up more than two dozen social media sites.

As a result, Joint Base Andrews members now have accessibility to a myriad of new media sites geared toward keeping them informed on base activities, exercises, clubs, news and entertainment.

The 11th Wing, the host wing at Joint Base Andrews, alone established and operates five social media sites to include Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Photobucket and WordPress.

The Joint Base Andrews Facebook page can be seen here: http://www.facebook.com/jointbaseandrews. Anyone can post to the wall, comment, like, download photos and watch videos from our page.

The Joint Base Andrews YouTube page can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/user/JointBaseAndrews and includes commander’s calls, presidential speeches, mission and U.S. Air Force Band and Honor Guard videos.

The Joint Base Andrews Twitter page is currently reserved for some of our higher interest items such as major events, news, and exercises. You can become a follower here: http://twitter.com/AndrewsAirForce.

Our Photobucket site is populated with downloadable, free photos from around Andrews. Check out all of the Andrews imagery here: http://s984.photobucket.com/home/JointBaseAndrews/index.

WordPress is a developing blog called “Just another day at Andrews …” and includes commentary from Joint Base Andrews members, which can be seen here: http://jointbaseandrews.wordpress.com/.

For more information on unit Facebook pages, check out the “Favorites” section on the Joint Base Andrews Facebook page.

Everyone is welcome to submit content to 316wg.pa.newmedia@afncr.af.mil. Submission does not guarantee publication. For more information, call 301-981-4512.

As summer slips away and you start packing away the beach gear, it’s a great time to take a good hard look at your organization. While spring may be the best time for cleaning, the fall is a perfect time to focus on organizational preparedness. I’d like to share a couple of thoughts on how to approach improving a unit’s ability to consistently perform at a high level and respond appropriately during a crisis.

We have all heard the familiar term, “lead from the front.” I would like to offer another viewpoint on leadership, “leading from behind” or what some may call “coaching.” The military has, through the years, created more agile organizations that no longer have the advantage of excess personnel or resources. With this in mind, each member of the organizational team has become more valuable and must be prepared to respond to external events within the boundaries laid out by our leadership. In order to create a unit with superior capability, as supervisors, we must empower our subordinates with the knowledge of their spectrum of responsibility, acceptable responses, and how much latitude lies within each realm. So instead of focusing on teaching followership traits, we focus on developing the leadership potential within all of our team members and hence their ability to respond quickly and appropriately. You do this not by telling someone what to do but rather by explaining why it should be done.

The real key to this relies on your subordinates’ ability to view you as an expert in your mission area. You can imagine how difficult it would be to coach a team if you don’t know the rules or how to play the game. So, before you can instruct, you must be a student and learn all you can about your mission; and once people trust your abilities, you can focus on coaching your subordinates and developing their individual potential.

The leader who provides vision on how the unit might respond to crisis and requests feedback will find that the members of the team may have some great ideas of their own. Then, like any good coach or leader, you incorporate the feedback to strengthen the game plan. The goal is to create leaders within each element of your organization and arm them with a common vision they can execute without hesitation. Ideally, as you develop these skills with your direct subordinates, they will continue the effort by developing the skills of their team members. The goal is to develop conversations in the hallways that emphasize “us” and “we” instead of “me” or “I.”

By “leading from behind” within your organization, you increase your operational capability and the unit’s ability to respond quickly. So no matter who is on duty when the unexpected occurs, they will respond appropriately. Of course, as supervisors and leaders you must always be prepared to assume your position of authority and lead your people. While I would never suggest that as leaders we delegate our responsibilities, I am offering a framework to use to increase overall capability by coaching our team members and focusing them on the unit’s vision. In doing so, we create leaders at all levels of the organization that have the skill and knowledge to decrease response time and increase effectiveness when faced with unexpected events.

In closing, moms and dads all across America have entrusted each of us with their sons and daughters as well as the security of our great country. It’s worth our time to examine our organizations and make sure we are taking care of both to the utmost of our abilities. So try “leading from behind” and see if it works for your organization.

Have you realized how lucky we are to work and play on Joint Base Andrews? I am a girl who grew up in the Mississippi Delta with nothing to do but watch the pine trees grow and the Katzu fight to take over the cotton fields, and the biggest celebrity we came into close proximity with was our mayor.

If the people from my hometown could see what happens here they would be in awe. Just yesterday on the way to the airfield I discovered we had a ramp freeze so the President of the United States could leave. How exciting it was to sit there and wait while the president walked up the steps and went some place wonderful. What some would say was an inconvenience to me was extremely exciting.  It was better than watching the news.

Then I proceeded to go get my government vehicle so I could pick up a video crew at Virginia Gate. I had to pass by all these beautiful “new” homes, and the school bus was stopping at every street corner. All of these cute little kids were waving to their friends and hoping and skipping to their new homes. It reminded me that we are not just a work area. We are a community!

Then I arrived at the Golf Course. Everyone there was having the time of their life. It was a beautiful day and the golf balls were flying.  No one there had anything but a smile on their face.

When I got the team to the airfield to set up for our photo shoot of the wounded warrior mission, I saw this strange formation coming my way. At first it looked like little birds flying in a “V” formation. I had never seen anything like that. The closer they got to the airfield the more I realized it wasn’t black birds like I saw back home. No. It was the Navy Blue Angels who blew by in a formation and did a mini air show of maneuvers in the sky before they broke up and landed one by one. I am sure they were getting ready for the Naval Academy Graduation. Do you know how grand it was to watch something like that?  No one else was there! It was like having my own little private air show. Anyone at the airfield could have watched it.

Later that night, as I walked through the hanger on the airField to go home, I had a big surprise. Normally, it is just an empty hangar, but there sat the biggest white and blue airplane that said “United States of America” on the side. It was just so exciting to be that close to it. I got goose bumps.

When I got in my car to commute an hour to get home, I realized, we are really lucky to work on Joint Base Andrews. You never know what you might see. It reminded me to stop and smell the roses. Or, in our case, the diesel fuel. For those of you that live here, ask yourself, “How lucky are we?”

After pounding the pavement on the flightline at Joint Base Andrews as a public affairs specialist escorting media, taking photos and updating new media sites during the three-day 2010 Joint Service Open House, I was ready for anything. People in my office at the 316th Wing hooked me up with a seat on a flight in the mammoth Blue Angels C-130 “Fat Albert” transporter aircraft, so I snatched my camera and hitched a ride to the end of the show line where they parked the aerial demonstration planes.

About a dozen servicemembers from various military branches gathered under the open bay doors to the hull where the pilot, U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Edward Jorge, and his crewmen briefed us on weather, aerial maneuvers and the physics behind what our bodies were about to experience: zero G’s and twice our normal body weight.

Nearing the end of the briefing, a crewman randomly asked for the lowest ranking person to come forth. “Who here is an E-1?” No one answered.

“E-2?” nope.

“E-3?” My hand shot up … and so did a Marine MV-22 Osprey crewman’s.

“Which of you two r-e-e-eally wants to sit in the bubble?” the Fat Albert crewman asked.

The bubble? Where on this massive machine of metal would there be something as dainty as a bubble? But from the slight ringmaster tone in his voice, I knew it’d be worth trying …

I shot my hand up again. The Marine did not.

“Alright, that’s you,” he said.

After the briefing my group entered the plane and the Marine approached me. “The bubble is the best seat in the house,” he said. “My friend told me if I was to sit anywhere, to sit in the bubble.”

I looked at him curiously … Why hadn’t he raised his hand then? I thought.

He was given a prime window seat, but it paled in comparison to the bubble. There, about eight feet above my head in the dark ceiling of the plane was what looked like a glowing white oculus. Beneath it was a tall aluminum ladder and dangling canvas and steel seatbelt straps.

I took a seat with the rest of the passengers against the wall, and, once Fat Albert taxied to the runway and positioned itself for takeoff, I was told to ascend to the bubble. The seat above me was no more than a welded steel slat for a perch. The trapped heat was intense and immediate as I climbed into the small ceiling space. A crewman helped secure me in and I met a sea of smiles from other servicemembers looking up from beneath my dangling feet.

It truly was the best seat in the house, as it boasted 360 degrees of sight out of a dome window from the top of this behemoth plane. I could see the tens of thousands of people gathered tightly around guardrails and static displays of the air show.

This, I knew, was going to be an incredible ride, for this was no ordinary C-130. Fat Albert was lithe for his size, and performed aerial maneuvers not often seen from a plane this large, such as jet-assisted takeoffs in less than 1,500 feet, as well as the ability to reach 1,000 feet in just 15 seconds … and we would be at the very center of it.

The plane started to accelerate and gained speed quickly. I watched as the throng of visitors became a blur past me, and then suddenly tip to a 45 degree angle; we were airborne. The other passengers in the hull let loose cheers and laughter. I was simply in awe, gripping one of the handholds in one palm and eagerly snapping with my camera in the other.

The pilot took us on a rollercoaster ride of dips, cuts, dives and tilts. I watched as we carved through the horizon – the tilted wingtips appearing to just shave the treetops. Houses grew small and then large again quickly, and I outstretched my hand to pluck their toy-like images from the landscape. It was a childhood fantasy – I was soaring over the nation’s capital on the back of a sleek blue and white dragon.

We circled the crowd on the flightline and, with each pass, a flurry of camera flashes lit up like fireflies in a Morse Code cadence of “H-E-L-L-O.”

On the final run to land, the pilot tipped the nose in a direct dive to the runway. Out of the bubble, I could see the hangars grow larger and larger and the wide-eyed expressions on people’s faces become more apparent. I prepared myself for a rough and hard-hitting impact. The blood escaped my knuckles as I gripped the handles on the sides of the bubble.

BUMP, RUMBLE, RUMBLE … SHOOOOOH …

The plane landed and rolled back on an angle until the nose faced the crowd. Were it alive, I pictured it taking a bow before its many fans.

That was it? We’ve stopped? Incredible! The passengers erupted in a chorus of cheers, applause and laughter. The captain had landed this plane as softly as any major airline – and on a dime! So where did they keep the peanuts and hot towels?

The pilot taxied back to the holding position on the tarmac where we unbuckled and exited the plane, everyone excitedly chatting amongst one another. I ran up to the Marine in the group and thanked him again and again for not competing for the seat. “Why didn’t you raise your hand?” I asked. He smiled as he shrugged his shoulders and said, “I saw you with the camera there and thought that you would really like it.”

Even though he knew it was the best seat in the house, he generously gave it to his fellow servicemember, and through his generosity, as well as that of my coworkers, the crew and the pilot, I was provided with the greatest and most memorable ride of my life on Fat Albert Airlines.