JOINT BASE-LANGLEY-EUSTIS, Va. -- Air Combat Command’s Sword Athena members gathered 12 Dec 2022 to resume their primary goal; breaking down female and family-centric readiness barriers.
SA 2023 will join forces through Parthenon with other Major Command’s to streamline similar lines of effort across the Air Force for the betterment of all.
“Airmen across ACC are accelerating change every day to stay ahead of our adversaries,” said SA Co-Lead Lt Col Elizabeth Blakeman. “The magic of SA, is the ability of Airmen at all ranks to have a positive impact by removing barriers to female and family readiness. As an organization, SA is proud of the role we play in ensuring our force is more lethal today, and tomorrow, and we look forward to continuing that work this year.”
Emphasis areas for SA in 2023 are the following:
- Female Fitment
- Specialized medical care for women and families
- Psychological Safety and mental health
- Cultivating Family Unit support culture
- Supporting Airmen in the workplace and providing Equality in training
If you want to join SA for 2023 or join in the conversation to offer your insights you are encouraged to contact sword.athena@us.af.mil
SA 22 action items that have been completed include:
- Female Bladder relief, multiple devices and Bladder relief academics
- Pregnancy flying waivers, AF updated policy and a waiver process is now in place
- Created GearFit feedback system for Aircrew
Col Blakeman and SA Co-Lead Chief Master Sgt. Diana Scaramouche, are excited to be part of this innovation and say that while SA has made great strides in helping to support AF Airmen improve their quality of life, the system that SA is ultimately meant to create is still being refined.
“As SA aggressively moves into 2023, we hope to show (that) the readiness issues we aim to resolve, serve in our Nation’s best interest,” said Scaramouche. “We need to be agile to reduce our self-imposed readiness challenges, and as a force, eliminate the potential of our near peer adversaries utilizing our challenges to their advantage.