A conversation with NATO’s commander in North Texas: Weapons and Warfare

Dec 04, 2024 at 03:00 AM CST

Host Ryan Robertson sits down for a conversation with the commander of the European NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training Program in Texas. — Image credit: Sheppard Air Force Base

This recording was made using enhanced software.

This week on Weapons and Warfare, host Ryan Robertson sits down for a conversation with the commander of the European NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training Program (ENJJPT). Col. Jeffrey Shulman, commander of the 80th Flight Training Wing, based at Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas, talks about how the program aims to provide advanced pilot training to NATO allies and partner nations.

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ENJJPT involves rigorous instruction on T-6 Texan II and T-38 Talon aircraft. Focusing on academics and flight training, students benefit from a diverse training environment, fostering international cooperation and developing highly skilled pilots ready to operate in various combat scenarios.

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Ryan Robertson is the anchor of the Straight Arrow News video podcast Weapons and Warfare. He wore many hats in his career — from photographer to news director — and firmly believes honest journalism will save our Republic.

Tags: F-16 fighter jets, fighter jets, Military Drills, NATO, U.S. military

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[Col. Jeffrey Shulman]

“Fighter pilots are fighter pilots. Some of them have just have different accents because they come from a different language, but the culture is almost exactly the same. And so what we establish here is that trust, right? And that mutual understanding that we’re all here for the same reason.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

WELCOME TO WEAPONS AND WARFARE, FOR STRAIGHT ARROW NEWS I’M YOUR HOST RYAN ROBERTSON. AND WHAT YOU JUST HEARD IS A PORTION OF MY INTERVIEW WITH U.S. AIR FORCE COLONEL JEFFREY SHULMAN, THE COMMANDER OF THE 80TH FLYING TRAINING WING AT SHEPPARD AIR FORCE BASE, TEXAS.

NOW THAT MIGHT SOUND LIKE ANY OTHER TRAINING WING IN THE AIR FORCE, BUT THE 80TH IS UNIQUE.

IN FACT IT’S ONE OF ONE.

THAT’S BECAUSE IT’S HOME TO THE EURO-NATO JOINT JET TRAINING PROGRAM, COMMONLY REFERRED TO AS EN-JEPT.

THE 80TH EMPLOYS MORE THAN 1,300 MILITARY, CIVILIAN AND CONTRACT PERSONNEL.

IT’S THE WORLD’S ONLY INTERNATIONALLY MANNED AND MANAGED UNDERGRADUATE PILOT TRAINING PROGRAM. 14 NATO NATIONS SEND THEIR SOON-TO-BE FIGHTER PILOTS TO THE 80TH. A WING WITH MORE THAN 200 AIRCRAFT THAT FLY 55,000 SORTIES AND 66,000 HOURS ANNUALLY.

AS EVENTS CONTINUE TO UNFOLD IN UKRAINE, RUSSIA AND EASTERN EUROPE, THE TRAINING CONDUCTED IN NORTH TEXAS HAS WIDE RANGING IMPLICATIONS WHEN IT COMES TO KEEPING FREE NATIONS FREE, AND FREE OF RUSSIAN AGGRESSION.

AND THAT’S WHY WE’RE SPENDING THE BULK OF OUR SHOW TALKING TO COLONEL SHULLMAN IN THIS WEEK’S DEBRIEF.

[TRANSITION]

ALL RIGHT, COLONEL. SO I MEAN, IT STARTED BACK IN THE 70S, AND YOU JUST KIND OF SAID IT, ENJJPT IS NATO IN TEXAS. SO WHEN YOU MEET FOLKS THAT YOU DON’T KNOW, HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN WHAT YOU DO?

[Col. Jeffrey Shulman]

“That’s a great question, Ryan, because, you know, I’ve been in command of ENJJPT four months, and I actually don’t have any ENJJPT or background in this program, and ironically, I’m leading it. When I was a young cadet trying to go to flight school and be a fighter pilot, I applied to come to ENJJPT, and I couldn’t get in because I wasn’t smart enough, and so I had to work my way. It took me over two decades to get to into the program, is what I told the wing. But when you look so before I took command of the wing, I had to do some research and history on what organization I was about to leave. And if you look how the program was started, it’s actually really interesting. And you know, back in the 70s, here at Shepherd Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, the Germans were doing already flight school here. So the German Air Force was training their own pilots here, just for airspace reasons and the great weather that we have in the state of Texas. At the same time, the US was in the Vietnam War. And the US was really, at that time, focused on training South Vietnamese pilots, and they were doing it separately. So you have the US trading South Vietnamese pilots in the 70s, and the German Air Force training their own pilots. And as you know from history is you hit the 70s, you start to hit the 80s. The Cold War really starts to take shape, right? The US gets out of Vietnam, right? And the Cold War with Ronald Reagan right, really becomes front and center of the world stage. And so as the Cold War heats up and starts to escalate, a lot of the nations in Europe and NATO were looking around like, oh my gosh, right, the USSR is this big bear. We don’t have a strong Air Force, and we need to build an Air Force. And so as they looked around in Europe, there’s just not a lot of capacity in airspace, and it was really, really expensive to train fighter pots. And they kind of looked across the world, they’re like, wait a second, the Germans are already doing this thing in Texas. Can we jump on this bandwagon? And so in 1980 the US Secretary of Defense, Harold Brown, along with the other partner nations ministers of defense, so the Secretary of Defense, equivalent, signed and agreed to stand up engine known as the Euro NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training Program. And that’s what started the program. Was an agreement from the Secretary of Defense with the other Secretary of Defense just to stand up the program to train fighter pilots for the NATO alliance. And over the times, through the 43 years of the programs, the you know, the partners have changed. And so most recently, we have Romania in the program they joined in 2017 and I will tell people, it is not a US program with international participation. You know, is an international program with us, participation that happens to be in Texas. And so my job is the njt Wing Commander, is to represent the 14 nations. Equally, I do not speak for the United States, right? Because I need to speak for Romania as much as I need to do for Italy, as much as I do the US. And each nation has its seat at the table? Just like the US has a seat table. It is not me. I do not sit on the what we call the steering committee, which is my board of directors. It’s a the Pentagon does that for me. My job is to execute the will of essentially at the Board of Directors.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

WITH THAT, AND YOU KIND OF MENTIONED JUST THE, OBVIOUSLY, THE MULTI NATIONAL FUNCTION OF IT, YOU AS THE COMMANDER. BUT THERE’S, THERE MIGHT BE ITALIAN, ROMANIAN, TURKISH, LIKE, FLIGHT INSTRUCTORS, OPERATION LIKE, RIGHT? LIKE ONE, IF A PILOT COMING IN TO TRAIN, MIGHT HAVE INSTRUCTORS FROM MULTIPLE COUNTRIES, LIKE THAT THEY’RE INTERACTING WITH WITHIN A DAY, CORRECT?

[Col. Jeffrey Shulman]

“Exeactly. And so it’s a edge up is the only, the world’s only internationally man and managed pilot training program, right? So it’s not again, you heard me say, it’s not a US wing or a US structure with, you know, bolted on, you know, partners. It’s, it’s completely integrated from the funding from the chair. And the thing that you see behind me that was paid for by the NATO Alliance that is not paid for by the US. And so each nation pays their fair share. And so one of my group commanders, and, you know, in a chain of command, it’s a, you know, a colonel, very senior officer, is German, right? He has full authority over over those six, five squadron underneath him, just like if he was an American. My one of my t6 squadron commanders as Italian, you know, I treat him the exact same way as my, you know, one of my US squadron commanders that happens to be one of my T-38 and so I’m about to have a Belgium squadron commander take command of one of my squadrons in a couple weeks. And it’s, you know, there is no difference from the chain of command to the instructors are all you know, from the program, and they all have to meet the same standard from language to flying proficiency, and that, you know, that’s the basis of the program, and that’s what really benefits the Alliance coming out of here, is the, you know, the partnerships that we make day to day, working here to two. When our students graduate, right? They go off and do big things. They already know how to integrate in a coalition. And as you know us, doesn’t go to conflict. Alone. We go to we go to conflict with allies and partners.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

IS IT JUST PILOTS OR, LIKE GROUND CREWS, MAINTAINERS? DO THEY GET TRAINING FROM OTHER COUNTRIES ALSO?.

[Col. Jeffrey Shulman]

“Nope. For the ENJJPT program, the the integration is with the Aviators. So just pilots, obviously, within the wing. You know, I actually do do other things and just train pilots. I actually train air traffic controllers too, but they all are American and so there’s just the way the program is set up in agreement. There’s certain functions that the US performs, just because it’s in the United States, right? And it makes sense to do things like air traffic control or flight equipment support, you know, maintenance of the aircraft, but the integration for ENJJPT is primarily, is focused on the combat aviation. ”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

COLONEL, I WANT TO TALK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT, LIKE, SOME NUTS AND BOLTS. YOU KNOW, HOW MANY OVER THE COURSE OF 70 SO, YOU KNOW, 30 PLUS YEARS, RIGHT? HOW MANY PILOTS HAVE GONE THROUGH AND LIKE, WHAT’S THE WHAT’S AN AVERAGE COURSE OR TRACK LOOK LIKE FOR A PILOT?

[Col. Jeffrey Shulman]

“Yeah, I think our numbers are over 8300 combat pilots trained for the NATO alliance. So that’s a good chunk. And a lot of those pilots we have trained are senior leaders in the in the alliance. And so I’ve only been here four months. In the last four months, I’ve had the one of the four stars from the US Air Force come here. He’s ENJJPT graduate. Had the Italian chief of staff come here. He was ENJJPT graduate. I just had the Dutch Chief of Staff of the Air Force come here. He’s ENJJPT graduate. Had the only four star in the German air force visit me. He’s ENJJPT graduate. And so I love those 8300 people. My point is there’s phenomenal, you know, humans that come out of this program and do greatness for all of our nations, regardless of where they come from. That’s why I wasn’t smart enough to get in the program. If you see what I’m saying, the as far as what a typical course looks like, you know, you know, a student will show up here from various nation, any of the 14, they’ll be edited into what is our, you know, a ground program or academics, where they learn basic things, like, you know, parachutes to survival training to equipment, to get ready to start to fly our first aircraft, which is the T-6 propeller airplane there. And so we’ll do that in the T-6 for, you know, about, you know, a third of the program. So that’s about 20 or so weeks. 20-30, weeks, they’re going through academics, and start hitting the flight line and the T-6 and just like any program, it’s kind of like walk, run, crawl, right? So you learn how to, first, like, start the airplane, and we turn, you know, take off and land the airplane. And we’re going to teach you how to take off the and land the airplane in bad weather, right flight and clouds. We’re going to teach you how to do it at night time. We’re going to teach you how to go to different airports and do it. And then we’re going to put other airplanes together, and we’re going to make you do it in what we call formation flying with two or four aircraft. Once they do that, every one of our graduates then out of the T-6 then goes to our T-38 which is our supersonic, two engine jet trainer, and that’s to prepare them for fighter aircraft. That program, we do the same thing. So we teach them how to start the T-38 we teach them how to land at T-38 and so it’s just faster, essentially about twice the speed when you’re talking about flying 300 to 400 miles per hour. So it’s just they have less time to make decisions and getting them ready for those type of aircraft that they’ll expect after here, from that point, they do what’s called track select or drop night. And actually, we have a drop night tonight, and that’s when the students, which is just a phenomenal you know thing, I tell you, it’s one of the coolest things I’ve seen in my career. I don’t even know how to explain it to any of your listeners that ever want to come visit one they’re more than welcome. It is just a great experience. And you know, whether it’s on our social media too, if you ever want to see some of the clips, what a drop that is. But they’ll figure out what airplane they go to, and then, you know, about 70% of our graduates do go to fighter aircraft. And then they’ll go to a program was called Introduction to fighter fundamentals. And they’ve already gotten their wings at this point. So now I’ve made them wing aviators, and I’m going to teach them how to go from flying an airplane, right? Okay, congratulations. You’re a pilot, but I got to teach you not to be an airline pilot. I got to teach you how to be a fighter pilot, right? And so we’re going to make that airplane in a war weapon, and that’s what we do, what’s called dog fighting, right? Just like Top Gun, you know the movie, right? We’re talking about, you know, how to how to gun and shoot other aircraft with missiles, to how to drop bombs. And the T 38 has some very good replications for weapons that we can use on it. So it’s like a video game, but we can do it in the air. And so they get those high performance maneuvering. We put them stressed under high G’s, get them ready to go. And then the goal is, once they graduate that then they’re going to go to their F -35 their F-16, their Euro fighter, Typhoon, their tornado, wherever nation they go to to get ready to go turn defeat any adversary that might challenge the coalition.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

YOU MENTIONED TOP GUN. AND THIS IS SOMETHING THAT I TRY TO ASK ALL PILOTS. USUALLY, I SAVE IT FOR THE END, BUT I’M JUST GONNA ASK IT NOW, WHAT’S THE MOST RIDICULOUS THING ABOUT THAT MOVIE? LIKE EITHER ONE FIRST OR THE SECOND ONE, WE GET A LOT OF…

[Col. Jeffrey Shulman, Commander]

“Volleyball scene? Or football scene? I just, you know, I’ve never just, you know, situation where I’m like, Hey guys, let’s go play volleyball with our dog tags that we don’t wear around our neck. It just, I just never, me and my crowd never seen that situation, but having a hard time that one imagine it. But what they did get right, what I tell people for you know, there are non-aviators that are listening, is what both Top Guns have gotten right, is they get the culture, the culture of that movie is accurate, right? The high standards, the competitiveness, the teamwork, right, the camaraderie that is, that is Shaq, they’ve gotten that right. And that is what is unique about Combat Aviation, is that the tightness and that brother and sisterhood that we have on our team.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

IT’S A GREAT ANSWER. THAT’S THE FIRST TIME ANYBODY’S EVER SAID THAT. SO GOOD JOB BEING ORIGINAL. IT KIND OF LEADS ME INTO MY NEXT QUESTION. OBVIOUSLY, LIKE YOU KIND OF MENTIONED IT, TEXAS HAS SOME UNIQUE GEOGRAPHIC FEATURES AND WEATHER THAT MAKES IT A GREAT PLACE TO LEARN HOW TO FLY. SO THERE’S OBVIOUSLY THOSE BENEFITS FOR FOR THE US AND ALL THE EUROPEAN COUNTRIES PARTICIPATING. BEYOND THAT, WHAT, WHAT BENEFITS DOES THE INJECT PROGRAM BRING TO ALL PARTICIPATING COUNTRIES,

[Col. Jeffrey Shulman, Commander, 80th Flying Training Wing]

“As far as… Are you talk about from a flying perspective, or or from just a..?”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

FROM, LIKE, A CULTURAL LIKE, THE THE INTANGIBLES, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN, WHEN YOU WHEN YOU TALK ABOUT PARTNER NATIONS, I MEAN, YOU MENTIONED A LOT OF THE, YOU KNOW, SECRETARIES OF DEFENSE AND, LIKE, HIGH LEVEL RANKING OFFICERS, LIKE, THEY’RE ALL ENJJPT GRADUATES, RIGHT? SO, WHAT IS THAT? WHAT IS HAVING THAT SCHOOL THERE IN WICHITA FALLS. HOW DOES THAT BENEFIT THE US DOD AS A WHOLE, AND OTHER NATIONS MINISTRIES OF DEFENSE?

[Col. Jeffrey Shulman, Commander]

“The partnership piece. And so I think it just builds trust. And as you know, humans are humans, regardless of you know what nation you’ve come from, that’s something I’ve learned as I’ve lived all over the world, is, you know, humans are humans, and they’re just people right in general, looking out for the same thing. And then the other estate thing I’ve learned is I’ve flown all over the world, is that fighter pilots are fighter pilots. Some of them have just have different accents because they come from a different language, but the culture is almost exactly the same. And so what we establish here is that trust, right, and that mutual understanding that we’re all here for the same reason. And as you know the world right now, I tell the wing is that I personally believe the world’s in the most dangerous spot since I’ve been alive. You know, I’m a Cold War kid. I’ve served, you know, through the Middle East. And I will tell you, as you know from some of your podcasts, is, if you’re looking at geopolitical events right now, it’s not looking really great. And so particularly with Putin invading Ukraine, that actually helped the ENJJPT program, because, you know, Europe’s eastern flank is right under threat right now, and so the partners are really, really interested in the program, really interested in, obviously, what the US can provide for deterrence and defense for Europe, but the social benefits and that mutual trust and understanding of, hey, I’ve worked with that someone, or, Hey, Do you know someone in the German air force? I’m like, Yes, I can get you the contact. And in fact, you know one of my US Air Force bosses, you know, needed the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s Norway’s email, but you know, a very senior leader in the US Air Force couldn’t get it. And I got it for him in five minutes because I went to my Norway rep and I said, Hey, can you go get your chief of staff’s email, and I had it in five minutes for a very senior leader in the US Air Force. And so right that that is something that we’re doing here on the ground. And then we have cool events, like I have Oktoberfest this weekend that my German Air Force lead is hosting, and then we have the Battle of Britain party here in a couple of weeks. So I have plenty of social events coming on. I’m a social butterfly here at ENJJPT is what I do from almost every week there’s some kind of international party or event or cultural exchange, and it all gets back to establishing that trust, or establishing that trust. Because again, as you know from history, when if the US has to go to war, we do not do it alone, is going to be with this team, and these flags we see on that patch are going to be with us. And so having that trust in that training together, from from day one at a very own thing, makes us very, very capable, if we were to have to go to conflict together.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

NEXT COUPLE OF QUESTIONS, COLONEL IS KIND OF ABOUT WHAT’S NEXT? I KNOW THAT ENJJPT IS IT’S AUTHORIZED OR, YOU KNOW, FUNDED UNTIL 2026 IT IT’S BEEN GOING SINCE THE 79 RIGHT? SO THERE’S NO REASON TO TO THINK THAT ANYTHING’S GOING TO CHANGE AFTER FISCAL 2026, RIGHT?

[Col. Jeffrey Shulman]

“So it’s actually 2036 so I have 10 years to your day. 36 Yeah. So, okay, it’s even better. A couple years ago, this thing is, you know, I don’t know what are yours at 2024 that’s at least, what? 12 more years. So they’ve already renewed the program for they’ve already committed to the program all 14 nations for 2036, so it’s not going away. I’ll tell you. There’s a there’s a memo I have in my office, and it’s from a former ENJJPT Wing Commander. It was given to him by a US Air Force four star general when he was the Wing Commander in. I’m not going to tell you the time or place, because I’ll throw a name on it, but it basically said to the Wing Commander, you know, ENJJPT is a Cold War relic, and it’s irrelevant, right? And I would tell you, if you look at the world events when that letter was written, you know, during the global war on terror, yeah, that’s probably right, right? You know, Russia, Putin really wasn’t doing anything. You know, China really hadn’t kind of bubbled up yet, right? And we’re really doing this Middle East, kind of low end conflict, you know, wars in the Middle East and so with, with Putin right invading Ukraine, and President Xi and his actions in the East and South China Sea and the DPRK continuing to have tensions in Northeast Asia, I will tell you, I just got back from Portugal last week, meeting with our the senior leaders that overseeing my wing and the spotlight at ENJJPT is absurd, right? Because for them, right? It is. This is a strategic program, because we produce almost all the fighter pilots for a lot of our nations, right? You know, 50% of the US Air Force, 50% of the US Air Force, fighter pilots come through this program. 100% of the fighter pilots for Germany, Denmark, Norway, etc, come through ENJJPT. If I don’t produce them pilots, they don’t have an Air Force. So you can see, from their perspective of what’s going on with Ukraine and Putin, how this emphasis, and you’ve seen in the news that a lot of the nations have started to meet the 2% GBT, sorry, GDP requirement for the NATO alliance, right? We have been, they’ve been neglect on that for years, probably because the geopolitical environment didn’t really warrant that. But I think, as you’ve seen the news with Putin is happening, the importance of this program is excessive. And in fact, the partners want to send more pilots through this program. I’m just at capacity, and so the US has made a decision to allow the partners to get first dibs. So they essentially get first slots available at ENJJPT. Because, as I said, it’s a strategic imperative for the program. They don’t have another option, and the US will fill in seats at our other UPT bases to defer to the partners so that they can get ENJJPT slots. And so that is where the program is at. You know, again, just coming back from Europe, its importance and relevance, I would argue, is, you know, increased to probably where it was in the in the 80s, when it was founded. It probably hasn’t seen that spotlight do the recent years. And, you know, I guess I could publicly thank Vladimir Putin for making our program a spotlight of the world again.”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

YEAH, YEAH, YOU’RE NOT THE FIRST PERSON INVOLVED WITH THE NATO ORGANIZATION TO SAY THAT HE MADE THE ORGANIZATION STRONGER, RIGHT? YOU’RE ON THE T-6 THEN THE T-38 I KNOW THAT THE AIR FORCE AND GENERALIZED PLANS LIKE UPGRADE TRAINERS. IS THERE A PLAN, I’M SURE, IN PLACE TO KIND OF UPGRADE THE AIRCRAFT THAT YOU’RE USING TO TRAIN THE PILOTS?

[Col. Jeffrey Shulman]

“Yeah, 100%. So our T-6 and T-3 are constantly going minor modifications that you don’t notice from the outside. You know, they’re getting new wings, they get slight new avionics modifications. So those are continually happening in my T-6 and T-38 fleet, as you know, the US Air Force has purchased the T-7 it’s, you know, public knowledge, just like an AFA when you were there, right? The T7 is having some timeline issues and delays. That’s pushing our T-38 replacements to the right. You know, ENJJPT is slated to get the the T-7 you know, it’s still kind of in debate of, you know, timeline, but it’s not, I won’t see it, right? I will be, you know, wing commands, only two years. I will be out of the seat by the time the T-7 arrives here. The first base to get it right now is Randolph. Is the plan. That’s where they do pilot instructor training for the US Air Force. That kind of makes sense to start off there and then just start to replicate it across the fleet. But we are slated to get the T-7 when that arrives and then looking to continue to modernize the program. Again, the weirdness about NGP is the 14 nations pick the course that they want to pick, right? They don’t, you know, the US, we already are different from US Air Force pilot training. We’ve already diverged from how the US Air Force is doing pilot training. And so the program, you know, the Board of Directors, the steering committee, the 14 nations pick what they want to do. They pay for the aircraft modifications, for a lot of it, and so that is the plan right now, is to onboard the T-7 and continue to be here at ENJJPT at least through 2036”

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

COLONEL. REALLY APPRECIATE YOUR TIME. THAT’S ALL THE QUESTIONS I HAD FOR YOU. IT’S IT. I MEAN, YOU REALLY COVERED THE IMPORTANCE OF IT. AND YOU KNOW, GIVEN THE STATE OF THE WORLD WHERE WE’RE GOING WITH WITH THE PROGRAM, IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO ADD QUESTION I DIDN’T ASK THAT YOU FEEL LIKE NEEDS TO BE ANSWERED RIGHT NOW?

[Col. Jeffrey Shulman]

“No, it’s just, you know, the biggest thing my talking points, that I talked to everybody out is, I always have to remind them is, you know, one, it’s not a US wing. And so if you think ENJJPT is a US program, right? That’s arrogant Americans. Sorry, American arrogance, right? It’s it is their program as much as it is our program, because we are just one signatory, right on the program. Two. We’re also the largest flying wing in the world. You know, that’s something our wing looked up there. Today, we fly 250 stories a day. We have over 200 aircraft our wing is bigger than many Air Forces in Europe, and so just the amount of sorties and aircraft generation that is happening is mind blowing. You know, when I first got here at a previous base, I was a deputy Fighter Wing Commander in Korea, and just, you know, I was overwhelmed by the notifications I was getting on my phone with the amount of aircraft in flight emergencies. And they’re like, sir, that’s normal, and it’s just because the scale is almost five to six times of what a normal wing flies. And so, and then you add the international dynamics from all the different nations, it’s just, you know, very high tempo, high paced wing. But we have phenomenal people, as I’ve already referenced, that come through this program. And so, you know, it’s the Harvard or fighter pilot school, if you want to pick a university, right? You know, the people that come through this program are generally, you know, Ivy League school graduates. I did a PT test with a kid the other day. He did 100 push ups. I was like, why are you in 100 push ups? You only need 50. Is, like, just because, sir, I’m like, You are crazy man, right? That is the type of people that we have in this wing. And that’s just the attitude. But the good news is, is that I have people like that that are going to go off and fight when the nation’s wars with the Coalition for us. And so I’m very confident on the product that we’re producing. I’m very confident on the instructor pilots that I have. And, you know, I think the American people and your listeners should know that, you know, we are not status quo here at ENJJPT, right? We are pushing very hard and very fast, because I recognize I don’t have a lot of time, right? And the Secretary of the US Air Force talks about “China, China, China.” I tell you that is on my mind. I tell my graduates instructors, I don’t know how much time and space I have to train you, and so I need to get you ready today, and that’s where we operate here. So, but I appreciate you taking the time to spotlight the program for the for the 14 nations. It’s always great to tell this story and just, you know, I’m very lucky to be here. And as I said, you’re, you know, I started off, it took me, you know, 20 years to get into this program. I’m trying not to screw it up.”

[TRANSITION]

[RYAN ROBERTSON]

ONE THING I FEEL FAIRLY CONFIDENT IN IS THE THOUGHT THAT COLONEL SHULLMAN WON’T, QUOTE, SCREW IT UP, END QUOTE.

I DON’T HAVE MUCH OF A WRAP THIS WEEK, MORE OF A FINAL THOUGHT.

THE EN-JEPT PROGRAM IS, OBVIOUSLY, VITAL TO GLOBAL SAFETY AND SECURITY …AND IT’S JUST ONE PROGRAM IN THE INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE THAT IS NATO.

THERE IS SOME UNCERTAINTY ABOUT THE FUTURE OF U-S INVOLVEMENT IN THE ALLIANCE. ROLES MAY CHANGE, BUT LIKE THE COLONEL SAID, AMERICA DOESN’T FIGHT ALONE. WE NEED OUR PARTNERS, AND THEY NEED US. ALLIANCES ARE PROMISES. AND I THINK AS THE GREATEST NATION IN THE WORLD, AMERICA SHOULD KEEP ITS WORD.

AND THAT’S GOING TO DO IT FOR THIS WEEK, BUT IF YOU HAVE ANY THOUGHTS ON THE EN-JEPT PROGRAM AND THE WORK BEING DONE IN THE 80TH FLYING TRAINING WING, LET US KNOW WHAT YOU’RE THINKING BY COMMENTING ON OUR SOCIAL FEEDS–OR BY SENDING US AN EMAIL, WEAPONS AND WARFARE AT SAN DOT COM

FOR SENIOR PRODUCER BRETT BAKER, VIDEO EDITOR BRIAN SPENCER AND GRAPHICS ARTIST DAKOTA PITEO–I’M RYAN ROBERTSON WITH STRAIGHT ARROW NEWS, SIGNING OFF.

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