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AFRC commander visits Fourth Air Force

  • Published
  • By Maj. Andra Higgs
  • Headquarters, Fourth Air Force
MARCH AIR RESERVE BASE, Calif. --  Lieutenant General Charlie Stenner, commander of the Air Force Reserve Command, visited March Field Aug. 6. The five-hour visit at Fourth Air Force provided the commander with a perspective of top-shelf issues among the numbered air force's 13 flying wings, two groups and scores of squadrons and flights. 

More importantly, the visit provided Lt. Gen. Stenner - on the job as AFRC commander for seven weeks - an opportunity to deliver his leadership themes and priorities to March Field personnel assembled in the Cultural Center. 

"Here's how we do our mission: Global Reach [anywhere at anytime with people and things], Global Vigilance [as the unblinking eye of our nation] and Global Power [as the Air Force kinetically flies and fights today and tomorrow," said Lt. Gen. Stenner, a Plain City, Ohio, native, a career fighter pilot and officer affiliated with the Reserve program for nearly 30 years. With a specific focus on the importance and continuous engagement of the heavy aircraft mission around the planet, he said "a mobility aircraft takes off every 90 seconds, 365 days a year." 

Among the issues briefed to the commander were new aircraft missions, enlisted and officer career development, force transformation, strategic communications, leadership transition and restoring Air Force leadership public credibility is the dull light of recent command-and-control blunders in the mishandling of critical elements of the nuclear enterprise. To the latter subject, Lt. Gen. Stenner emphasized another important point in that acquiring new air-refueling aircraft is the "single point of failure" for the operational nuclear mission. 

At the top of the general's list, however, is aligning the air, space and cyber "lexicon" related to the capabilities and responsibilities of the Air Force Reserve among the three components (to include the Air National Guard and the regular Air Force) which are being communicated to families, employers and legislators. 

"We are now an operational Reserve and we are sized to be a strategic Reserve," he said, referring to continuous mobilizations of AFRC personnel. "Where is the predictability we promised employers? Working with employers and Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) is something we are going to need to take on as a command ... We are hearing that employers can't take it anymore."