Are You A Union Member? Published Nov. 6, 2007 By Chief Master Sgt. Al Taggart 727th Expeditionary Air Control Squadron BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq -- Many of you have heard me utter the phrase "Burn your union cards!" before we head out to the field or on a deployment. A select few have heard me say it in my outside voice when I've been saddened by your actions. I figured this was the perfect forum to explain what those words really mean. When some one asks you what you do in the Air Force, how do you answer? Do you tell them you're a personnelist, aerospace ground equipment or vehicle mechanic, air battle manager, radar or radio systems maintainer, medic, computer systems operator or whatever your Air Force Specialty Code happens to be? The right answer, as we all know, is that we are Airmen first and functional specialists second. This is especially important in an Air Control Squadron. We have Airmen in more than 20 different Air Force specialties -- who normally bicker like siblings -- providing command and control of in excess of 200 combat sorties daily in 277,000 square miles of Iraqi airspace. There are no unimportant jobs. Burning your union card means seeing something that needs to be done and doing it; not leaving it for someone else to do. It means removing the phrases "we can't do that" and "that's not my job/responsibility" from your vocabulary. It means we don't quit until the job is finished and we are fully operational. It means occasionally stepping out of your comfort zone and using some unconventional thinking to get the mission accomplished. Burning your union card means attacking every obstacle in true warrior fashion. Every single one of us has to do their part to complete the misssion properly 24/7; people's lives are on the line. The closing lines of the Airman's creed say it best, "I will never falter and I will not fail." Burn your union cards!