Dyess wins best CAF practices in ACC

  • Published
  • By Airman First Class Autumn Velez
  • 7th Bomb Wing
Dyess Air Force Base was recently recognized by Air Combat Command for having the best Comprehensive Airman Fitness practices for the fourth quarter of 2013.

Dyess was able to accomplish this with a team of representatives who work together to ensure unit CAF points of contact have what they need to ensure quarterly training is completed.

With some units having hundreds of personnel and limited amounts of resources for CAF events, Bob Sayer, 7th Bomb Wing community support coordinator, said master resilience trainers and resilience trainers from each unit play a vital role in accomplishing the required training.

"Units are responsible for conducting their own CAF activities each quarter using their master resilience trainers and resilience training assistants," Sayer said. "Unfortunately, many of these units have hundreds of Airmen with only three or four resilience training assistants. To help ease the pressure of getting everyone trained, we developed a wide-variety of base CAF activities to offer more support to the squadrons."

The award for best CAF practices was based on the variety of activities made available for Airmen to fulfill their resiliency requirements. For this quarter, the primary focus was spirituality. CAF also covers physical, social and mental health, which in turn prepares Airmen to better face stressors in their lives.

"This quarter was significant because we conducted the most diverse number of base cross-organizational activities to date," Sayer said.

Compared to typical forms of total force awareness training, these events offered opportunities for human interaction.

"CAF is a new program used to breed a culture of resilience," said Tech. Sgt. Tiffany Kuczkowski, 7th Bomb Wing master resiliency lead trainer. "We are taking a step back from computer-based training and working together to accomplish these activities. The fact that we won this award shows we successfully came together across the base to educate our Airmen on how to be resilient."

Sayer has found that when CAF training is made accessible, it is easy for Airmen to receive the training they need to be resilient.

"CAF is important to Airmen because we, as an Air Force, need to provide more resources to strengthen more than just a person's physical fitness," Sayer said. "All four domains need to be strong and balanced to help people face life's adversities, and to learn and grow from those experiences. Without the proper skills, people are at greater risk when faced with challenges. All of these facets of CAF work together to guarantee that no one at Dyess AFB has to face the challenges of life alone."


In the future, the Dyess CAF planning committee expects to continue providing Airmen with CAF training, while remaining as efficient and flexible as possible. For the upcoming quarter, the focus will be the physical pillar of resilience. To create a variety of options the CAF committee is hosting an event called 24 Hours of Resilience.

"This event will have many options to help reach CAF requirements," Sayer said. "At least each group will have one member on the track from 8:30 in the morning on September 11 to 8:30 the next morning. We will also have different events to include a fitness challenge, United States Marine Crops Infantry training challenge, swimming clinics, health and wellness fair, nutrition clinic, a healthy food cook-off and a celebrity fitness trainer."