Henry said that the QDR’s “hundreds of hours” of meetings among the top leaders in the services, the DOD and the field commanders led to “a lot of group learning … at the four-star level.” Rather than “being protectors of their community or advocates for their specific community’s contribution, they started … understanding what ‘joint interdependence’ really means.” He translated that as the branch leaders now being willing to depend on their sister services to provide capabilities critical to their own success. “Everyone got” that they need to set aside service rivalries and “the zero-sum game approach,” he asserted.
With the Air Force in the midst of its biggest testing boom in decades, the Maintenance Operational Test (MxOT) Division at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., is making sure those tests include an often-overlooked perspective: that of maintainers.