JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, Va. --
U.S. Air Force Airmen and their families are impacted by situations throughout their lives in different ways and must use the skills they have to care for themselves and others around them.
“Resilience is the ability to bounce back and grow from the experiences in your life,” said Carole Barton, Joint Base Langley-Eustis community support coordinator. “Learning from those experiences and adapting from them.”
The Air Force teaches its members to use the four pillars of Comprehensive Airman Fitness—mental, physical, social and spiritual to help build and sustain a resilient workplace and community. CAF emphasizes the concept of Airmen and families taking care of themselves and each other, and empowers Airmen to hold each other accountable through the Air Force core values.
Throughout life, Airmen can use these tools and resources provided by their training to help cope with the daily challenges at work and at home, said Barton.
The Air Force also provides Resiliency Training Assistants, who learn more about resiliency and the various tools that come with it. RTAs take that information back to their unit and share what they learned with their wingmen, distributing the tools of resiliency.
While RTAs help train their wingmen, individuals already have the skills to be resilient, the Air Force just helps them further by providing resources to properly use those skills in day-to-day life.
“The importance of building resiliency is to be able to deal with a variety of different experiences in your life,” said U.S. Air Force Tech Sgt. Talbert Knepshield, Joint Base Langley-Eustis lead resilience trainer. “With the necessary training, we provide Airmen with a better understanding on how to act during those experiences.”
Using the skills Airmen already have and the tools the Air Force provides like the four pillars of CAF, Airmen are able to lessen the impact from negative experiences and grow in a positive way.