Soaking the sponges: FTAC helps Airmen grow

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Austin Harvill
  • 31st Fighter Wing Public Affairs
AVIANO AIR BASE, Italy --  New U.S. Air Force Airmen are sponges when they join. For weeks, they soak up knowledge during basic military training and technical school.

Then these Airmen, armed with knowledge and ambition, graduate from technical school, ready to experience their new installation. But, all of the sudden, for the first time in months they are alone with no schedule, no coursework and hopefully no one shouting instructions. These Airmen are ready to apply the training they learned, but they don't know how.

This is where the First Term Airman Center instructors like Tech. Sgts. Maurice Carbajal and Maribelle Hernandez come in to introduce these students to the operational Air Force.

"Right out of school, these Airmen know everything: when to report an incident, the chain of command, the importance of a mentor and so on," said Carbajal. "What we give them is the practical application of that knowledge as well as a few real-world [suggestions] for their future."

The FTAC mission is to help Airmen transition from a training environment into a functional workspace. Through briefings, interactive counseling and a little bit of mentorship, Carbajal and Hernandez are the new students' first impression of the Air Force.

Before they have the opportunity to lead these young Airmen, FTAC instructors must be selected amongst a pool of their peers, ensuring only the best of the best receive this leadership position.

Carbajal, who is replacing Hernandez as the FTAC instructor, doesn't see himself in a leadership position, but instead as something of a close family relative, where the Air Force represents a mother or father figure.

"The Air Force gives Airmen these requirements; find a mentor, study your [coursework], go to school and so on-like a parent saying 'Don't do that. I need you to do this,'" said Carbajal. "It is up to us, their peers and mentors to be like an uncle or aunt, ready to listen when they are frustrated or confused to lend a helping hand."

Carabajal hopes to teach Airmen the perspective of the Air Force as a family, as he said his experience in the Air Force taught him to live as an Airman in a personal and professional way.

"Most Airmen aren't motivated by 'do it because you need to,' there is no personal reason behind that," explained Carbajal. "It isn't wrong to want to go to school just to meet people, for instance. It isn't a bad idea to volunteer just to hang out with friends. I want them to find the reason to succeed that speaks to them as people."

Hernandez seconded Carbajal's sentiments, as she hopes to help Airmen further their personal connection with the Air Force.

"My mentors have always guided me through what I call APP," said Hernandez. "It stands for attitude, performance and passion. If [Carbajal] and I can help them adjust their attitude, increase their performance and ignite their passion so they all line up, we can hopefully set a foundation for future mentors."

While Hernandez and Carbajal strive to impress these lessons upon future leaders of the Air Force, both believe learning goes both ways.

"We get to see a very unrefined perception of our Air Force," said Carbajal. "These Airmen only know the very foundation of our trade. It is always a different outlook from class to class, how they interpret certain things that many of us who have served for years and years tend to forget.

Hernandez further explained how the new Airmen who walk into class give her a sense of where the Air Force is going, and these experiences help tailor her teachings.

"One day I'll harp on the importance of dress and appearance to a student and the next class will have me going over the needs of education or professional development," she said. "When I put these experiences together, I can see how quickly our Air Force is changing and try to help my students embrace that change and continue moving forward in the right direction."

Finally, both instructors expressed their desire to keep FTAC a very real, very personal experience.

"This course is the first experience [Airmen] have with our functional Air Force," said Hernandez. "I hope [FTAC] remains so other students can see the Air Force as not a machine, but as a living, breathing organization dedicated to growing them into the best Airmen."