Be Trained for the Task at Hand Published March 22, 2016 By MASTER SGT. BRIAN MITCHELL U.S. Air Force, retired KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. -- Note: Long before the Air Force Safety Center stood up at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., on Jan. 1, 1996, Airmen were sharing their lessons learned in a variety of safety publications such as Aerospace Safety, Aerospace Maintenance Safety, Air Force Driver, among others. During a year-long commemoration of the safety center's 20th anniversary, the Public Affairs Office will highlight previously-published articles and reprise historic Rex Riley cartoons to emphasize that long-standing safety practices and lessons learned remain relevant to the mishap prevention program of today's Air Force. There I was a young staff sergeant who had just arrived at Vandenberg AFB, Calif., from Edwards AFB, Calif. Originally, I was to be assigned to the munitions control section, but when I signed into the squadron, I was reassigned to the Peacekeeper ICBM shop. I imagine the reason for the move was the manning there was low. I was new to the base, so I didn't complain. Prior to this assignment, I worked from contractor documents the previous six years, not technical orders. I knew this was definitely going to be a change for me. After I accomplished my training, I was finally able to be in the shop and see how operations worked. It took me a little while to get acclimated to this new environment, but I could tell that they really needed help. They had a team chief and team member to build re-entry vehicles and only one team chief to build the deployment module. Since they appeared to be undermanned, I figured I would try and help out the team in whatever way I could. I was new to the re-entry vehicle/re-entry system. Most, if not all, of the general tasks in my career-field education and training plan were signed off. I was confident in my abilities to help the guys out, so the team chief for an RV assembly had asked me to run the hoist for an assembly. Back then, we really didn't have a bay chief. We had an assistant NCOIC who thought it was OK for me to run the hoist. I ran the hoist with the forward section of an RV attached. A team member was giving me directions to bring the hoist down. I had the hoist in creep mode, when, all of the sudden, our bay door opened, and there stood our assistant NCOIC and quality assurance representative. The assistant NCOIC stormed out of the bay without stopping our operation and went right into the NCOIC office. The team chief decided to hold off on the rest of the operation, so we stopped the task. We were all waiting in the bay to see what was going to happen. After about 15 minutes, our NCOIC came out in the bay and proceeded to give us a stern lecture. I tried to plead my case, saying I had been running hoists for years, and I really didn't see a big problem. Well, I was wrong. I was told by our master sergeant NCOIC that we do things right in this shop, and he wasn't going tolerate it when people aren't properly trained for the task. Like I said before, I really didn't see a problem, but you know that old saying "hindsight is 20/20." Now, retired after about 25 years in the service, I can say to all of the young team chiefs out there - never take anything for granted. You have a very important job that you do day in and day out. Just remember to take it one step at a time. The moral to this story is if you're not signed off in your training records for a certain task, even though you've done the task before, you're not qualified, and your team could go down. Remember peace and safety is our profession. (Reprinted from Wingman Magazine, Summer 2011)