You told us what was broke – now we fix it

  • Published
  • By Col. John Wilson
  • 71st Flying Training Wing vice commander
VANCE AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --  Nearly two months ago I asked for your help.

I asked you to take the "Caring for People" survey and provide constructive criticism to help us focus our support to the base community.

No surprise -- you delivered!

Starting May 17, we begin a 10-week "fix-it" program. Every week, specialists from across the base will tell you what we are doing to answer your concerns.

There will be a media blitz on the Vance website, the Scoop newspaper, base-wide email, Facebook, and MyMC2.

I promise we will tell you exactly what we are doing to resolve your concerns and the way ahead. If we are off target, I want you to tell us.

According to the survey, your top three concerns are timeliness of health care, dependent deployed support -- again -- and healthy food options.

I despise waiting so I told our base specialists to get on your top three concerns now.

If any of you heard my thoughts on the Consolidated Unit Inspection, you know my sentiment -- zero repeat write-ups.

We have a repeat write-up from the survey -- dependent deployed support.

The team owes you answers. Next month I am deploying for 365 days, so I want to ensure my wife, Sandi, gets appropriate support when I am downrange. You can be assured this has piqued my interest.

They have been given three weeks to solve it - that is one week before I am on a rotator for my deployment.

I want the base to be standardized. The level of care I get is the level of care you or your deployed member will get.

We will tell every family what we will provide when their deployed member is downrange. Some squadrons and organizations may go above and beyond, but every work section will know the baseline level of support required for our deployed members.

Health care - we're on it.

We owe you answers. Because we are a small base, we may not be able to fix all of your concerns but we are aggressively pursuing civilian manning fixes.

Due to deployment constraints and the hiring freeze, we can't fill all requirements, but details on what we can do will follow. Money is tight; however, if you can't come to work because you need medical support, we are losing the battle.

The Enid community has some exceptional medical support, but if we can't get you or your dependents seen with a quality provider, we need to know about it.

Finally, get your salad plates out and prepare for some healthy eating.

Although he doesn't know it yet, Col. Darren James, the 71st Flying Training Wing commander, will sign a letter designating an 11-member Military Nutritional Environment Assessment Tool action team to provide healthy food options at Vance Air Force Base.

I know you can have fried foods to your heart's dis-content, however you and I want a healthier option and we want it now.

I sincerely thank all of you that provided constructive feedback through the "Caring for People" survey. We looked at every survey response and we are moving out to make your base even better.