04.05.2024

Hello ladies and gentlemen my name is. cadet third class hayden moody. welcome to the 28th annual national. character and leadership symposium. it is my privilege to welcome you and. our guest speaker chief master sergeant. thomas case chief case enlisted in may. of 1997. after graduating the tactical air. control party schoolhouse he reported to. the 13th air support operations squadron. the gunslingers at fort carson colorado. there he was the close air support. expert a joint tactical attack. controller for the army. as a highly skilled airman he lived. trained and executed the joint mission. of the fourth infantry division. he lived by the tacbi motto the strong. shall stand the weak will fall by the. wayside. in 2001 he was picked up by what is now. known as the 17th special tactics. squadron. this coveted unit required yet another.

Grueling selection process. serving alongside green berets rangers. seals and more. it was at this unit that chief case made. his marks on history. chief case was awarded the silver star. medal once in 2003. and again in 2009 while supporting the. army's 75th ranger regiment. there are only two other airmen in air. force history that have received two. silver stars. what distinguishes men like chief case. is not their words. but their refusal to rest on them after. deploying over a dozen times in support. of. operation iraqi freedom and operation. enduring freedom. he continues to serve as the chief. enlisted manager back the 13th. asos he manages the daily operations of. three brigades and division staff of. airmen aligned with the 4th infantry. division. ladies and gentlemen it is a privilege. to present to you chief master sergeant.

Thomas case. hey thank you for that introduction and. it's really my distinguished honor to be. here and be part of ncls. i can't think of a better way to help. get some of this message out and a. little bit of this testimony. so with that being said what i want to. talk about a little bit is i want to. touch on resiliency. and you'll see me turn a little bit from. the camera here and there but i've got. some talking points. that i think are important in regards to. my story and how we've come full circle. over the last almost 24 years of. military service for myself. so uh um when we talk about resiliency. we. and you define it it's really the. capacity to recover quickly. from difficulty um and of course there's. a lot of this etc that's associated with. that. and i often think that the d enterprise. in its entirety can.

Tend to overuse the term and its. application. that application should be vetted to be. appropriate. and from the definition one would. surmise that. it covers a single issue our airmen. collectively don't always understand. what the united front of what we term. resiliency. can span from a single incident a week's. worth. of months etc more importantly and i. know i'm not the only one to experience. this. but basically cover span of two decades. with that i want to thank you for. listening to this testimony. so i grew up in small town in mexico uh. i grew up. a town called socorro you can. some people might be able to find it on. a map but it's about an hour or so south. of albuquerque. and growing up uh as the son of a game. warden. um i was really one of the few. white kids in town you know one of the. one the anglo kid in town.

And so i i spent a lot of time fighting. um. physically fighting and those. altercations kind of you know they don't. they give you some some physical. toughness but i don't believe it always. gives you the mental. toughness either after i graduated. socorro i went to a military college in. roswell called new mexico military. institute some of our cadets may be feel. familiar with it as one of the pr. preparatory courses part of going to uh. usa campus maine there. i met my first wife there thought we. were in love. got married at a pretty young age around. 20. and uh had a young baby at home my. oldest son devin. during that time i was kind of bouncing. from job to job trying to support this. family and i knew that i needed more. i needed something more not just for. myself but for my family. and after having been to military school.

I decided i was gonna. go ahead and enlist in the military and. i knew i was gonna go air force. when i did that i didn't do it at a. patriotic fervor i literally did it. because my young family needed health. insurance um and this is peace time you. know 1997.. and uh so i i enlisted and i and i went. to the i went to basic training. and uh i felt compelled to know that i i. needed something. i wanted to do something cool something. actionable something gi joeish if you. will. you know and really get out there and. get after the mission and trying to. discover that in the air force was a. difficult thing. um because the air force special warfare. brand wasn't a thing 23 24 years ago. i was able to figure out what attack p. was i applied for it and tried out a. base to training and i and i. off the hurdle field i went for my.

Training. um being attacked is really awesome. but i'm not here to promote the job but. i'm gonna tell you how much i've enjoyed. it to include the trials and. tribulations that are associated with. that. after basic in their in our textbook and. our training pipeline um coming full. circle i was a. brand new airman uh here at the 13th. asos at fort carson colorado. uh where i'm broadcasting from here and. uh. it was a kind of a peacetime thing we. had some kosovo stuff going on and all. we did was we trained and we trained and. we trained and we trained and we trained. some more. spent many rotations at the national. training center in support of uh. whatever army maneuver brigade and. learning how to be attacked p and. learning to what it means to be. what we define as a jtac now a joint. terminal attack controller.

All those rotations to ntc hanging out. at fort carson here at the 13th air. sport operation squadron. i desired more there had to be more to. this job than just going to. these combat training centers time and. time again so i put on a package and i. assess for. special tactics um. special tactics in a hole it was funny. because. as i'm getting ready to prepare that. package i was a senior airman. e4 one of the ncos in the squadron. at the time who uh wanted to do the. special tactics thing so bad but just. couldn't do it for medical reasons. he came up and he says to me he's like. you know tommy um. just because you get picked up and go to. afscock and do the special tactics thing. that doesn't always mean you're going to. see combat i was young i was eager. like many of us do in the military i. wanted adventure.

Lo and behold fate had a hand i was. picked up. after assessment for the special tactics. world. and in august of 2001 i moved to. fort benning georgia now between that. assessment and. that that pcs there was some marital. strife going on like i said we were. married young. um uh had a young baby now. uh two kids devin was i think he was. about four years old and my. my daughter savannah was born just. before that move. so i looked at getting selected in that. pcs to fort benning georgia to the 17. special tactics as a new mission. a new location and hopefully. kind of clinging on to hope hopefully. which is a great course of action. and marriage refreshed and this is about. the time frame of august 2001. i get to this new unit the new guy. uh it was pretty awful it would probably. be what we constitute as hazing. uh in today's environment but uh.

I was smoked uh and for those unfamiliar. with the term. made to do lots and lots of exercises by. uh. the ncos charged over me at the time and. i did have a line number for staff. sergeant but i hadn't sewn on yet. and i had a lot to learn too a big huge. learning curve. so they did everything they being the. people that i was stationed with did. everything in their power. to make me quit or make me want to quit. i refuse to do so. i didn't feel very good about it either. and i did not enjoy. going to work something happened that. kind of shook that up. and uh and we'll refer to that as. september 11th. so the terror attacks on the world trade. center in the pentagon. and the crash out in pennsylvania. significantly shipped the world um. and uh with some very emotional events. for for many of us. and the toil of that event continued.

To be an emotional event for many of us. myself included. over the span of the next 20 20 20 years. give or take. the funny thing is as we geared up to. invade afghanistan to fight. al qaeda i was notified that i was going. to airmen leadership school. the funny thing about that is as you. guys. as you cadets will know as you grow up. through the ranks after your commission. is. professional military education yes even. that trumps combat sometime. so as all my my my squadron mates. deployed with third ranger battalion. in the 75th ranger regiment i stayed. back and i went to airmen leadership. school. a prerequisite for staff sergeant. they got back from their initial. deployment shortly after when i was. graduating ranger school and i. specifically remember. my my my soonto-be boss at the time and. a great friend of mine now.

He pulled out these dirt canisters out. of his bag as weird as they were putting. their stuff away. from that deployment and he lit says hey. hey tommy you see this this is this is. dirt in pakistan. i hope you get to touch it someday and. that resonated because i was like man i. just want to get after the mission i. want to go employ. i feel left out of the club because. i went to pme and as a chief i. understand that now. so i got my opportunity. um that spring of 2002. i was told to get my stuff together and. i was going to deploy. and i did and i think the word was like. hey put. put sergeant case me put that guy. somewhere where he can't really hurt. anything. i hadn't really done anything i had. there's no name of myself whatsoever. so they put me on the qrf outside of. kandahar with uh one of the. rage platoons quick reaction force qrf.

Normally a pretty drab mission and not a. lot of action. spent a lot of time lifting weights and. playing board games in a tent outside of. kandahar. with uh with the guy from the uk well. the call does go on. and the call goes up and what do you. know uh. i'm on a cstar mission a c-130 a crash. outside of gardez and we. and we we reacted to it this is my first. time outside the wire. we get there we land we're recovering. dead of americans and i distinctly. remember the smell because the shape of. that c130. in flames was a perfect outline of a. c130. while we're there the ground force. commander says what what is on station. aircraftwise. i say there's an ac130 he says great. ac130 reports some stuff going on in. regards to a truck full of potential bad. guys. and the ground force commander says if. they get any closer than this amount.

I want you to go ahead and engage them. i'm young i'm impressionable first time. outside the wire. and i've got all this firepower under my. control. they get closer i have food poisoning. on the mission i'm suffering through. that. i won't get into the gory details on. that piece and we end up engaging. these guys the bad guys in the truck. coming our way. that's a lot to digest for a young kid. that's on out on his first mission a. newly minted staff sergeant. and we go home we recover back to the. back to. back to where we're staying finally have. an opportunity to call home. remember the marital strife i call home. she says i'm cheating on you. i'm pregnant and everything that you can. possibly imagine to go wrong with a. marriage. while not at home but specifically i had. a couple weeks to digest that. i come home i tried to stay married.

Didn't work out obviously 2003 we invade. iraq. and i'm with the ranger still uh we have. this huge fight at the hadith. damn where i garnered my first silver. star and it was a very bloody fight very. violent. fight while out there i get a note from. my wife who i have not divorced yet. and it's a note that she could send. through the first certain and all it. says is like. hey hope you're doing okay um i haven't. heard from you. savannah wants to go to disney world my. daughter. and it's just signed with her name no. love you or can't wait to see it nothing. like that. but it's a good pep in my step right i'm. like well maybe things are going to be. okay back at the front side. never happens we recover from iraq. and you know i'd love to sit and tell. the war stories. and because they're awesome but uh we. recover from iraq and i i.

I come home and she's gone the house is. empty. she's moved somewhere else within town. okay. so be it i finally uh realized that. maintaining that relationship isn't in. the cards and so. we divorce i retain full cussing my kids. but even with that and the high ops. tempo and the high demand i still met. every training opportunity and. deployment. requirement associated with that i went. to seven level school in florida and i. met my wife my current wife. my last wife um absolutely the love of. my life. and she became a really uh steadfast. issue in our lives and. was raising those kids and and just was. a good mom. um i transitioned from third ranger. battalion to what they call ranger. reconnaissance. and those were just nothing but deploy. deploy deploy and a lot of those. deployments some of them yeah they're. they're.

Uh you kind of sit around and do some. stuff and not not really actually pack. some of them on the other hand were uh. running gun gun fights consistently over. a period of months. and that wears on you that wears on the. mind that wears on people and. i know that there might be some people. that are watching this bracket or this. uh. this this video and and they can relate. to that. you know and uh. i got married to kathy during this time. that same time frame of all that going. on and. uh i was in range of reconnaissance for. a period of years and in 2008 i went. back to. third range of battalion and for that. flight i was i was the flight chief. i spent several rotations with the with. the strike force there and all we did. was target. terror camps up in the hindu kush in. afghanistan and some other. localized countries in that area and.

It's just a constant stream of of. violence. um and how that's associated. and how that plays on the psyche and. everything else is associated with it. because even back then we didn't have. all the resources available to us now. where i can walk down my hallway and i. have an embedded psych and a human. performance team that to. to help build and maintain that. resilience and recover. i was pretty worn out at this point. after multiple deployments in the double. digits. that i called the commander from. afghanistan. or he called me i don't know and we were. talking and i said sir i need a break. i'm weary i'm tired i just need a break. and the answer i always got was just one. more. just give us one more rotation and of. course being the good airman being the. good attack pim. yes sir one more well those one wars. came to what i thought was going to kind.

Of uh chill out a little bit because. uh in 2009 we hit an objective um where. i garnered my second silver star. another significant emotional event and. uh. i came home and i was dealing with so. much. stuff you know the people like to refer. them as the inner demons if you will. and i was just miserable to myself. i was miserable to my family and i'll. give a quick antidote there is i came. back from that deployment and i said. my wife kathy i said let's go uh let's. go to the trailhead let's go for a run. just get out of the house this is in. georgia she's like okay we go down there. we're walking down this really steep. hill and there's gravel and stuff on it. and she slips and she falls on her. backside. and i was and she's physically in pain. and i'm just of the sorts of. hey get up dust it off ranger on come on.

Let's go. and that girl did it she ran that trail. with me. nearly a whimper but obviously in pain i. took her home. she said i got to take a hot bath her. entire tailbone was bruised for almost. from. the bottom of her shoulder blades to the. bottom of her coccyx there i mean she. was really really bruised and she was. literally injured. but me being the man i was in that. mental state was like suck it up. buttercup let's get on with the mission. that was the run of nature trail. that was an emotional event as well uh. there were some words said um in regards. to my attitude and my anger and my and. just me being miserable. 2010 i transferred from fort benning and. i got assigned and i got hired for a job. at the joint special operations command. you know in the state i was you never. would think that hey if i go to.

Jsoc join space special operations maybe. i can get a break for a second. no i transitioned to jaysaka before. bragg kathy's with me. the mission started off immediately and. kathy looks at me and she says. i thought you said this is going to get. easier um. working in that organization it's. literally a pound of flesh a day it. could be very very rewarding and i. didn't realize the reward of that level. of. of work at jsoc until well after the. fact. 2011 i went to iraq and shut it down. or helped shut it down and my exwife. calls me and she says hey john the. child that was born out of wedlock or. not my biological kid. you know she's like hey he's not doing. well in school out here they think he. has adhd all these other things. he's seven years old and i've always. kind of been involved in his life. and i talked to her on the phone i said.

If it's so bad just send him to live. with me and kathy. she does but i'm proud to say that i've. raised that boy and kathy as well from. the moment he was. basically seven and he graduates high. school this year so it's pretty cool. so the thing about jsoc is even when. you're working at jsoc. man you're gonna miss anniversaries. birthdays holidays milestones and kids. of kids lives. everything and you may be just 15 miles. down the road. i could be sitting in country x one day. and be back at jsoc meeting the next. and just globe trotting and getting. after the war and terror and uh. again it goes to the back back to that. pound of flesh a day so eventually. after four years there i was able to. come back to the what we call the the. normal. tag p community and now i thought. and kathy thought i was like man we're.

Really gonna be able to catch our breath. now. we're gonna catch our breath i'm. literally across the street from jsoc. on the pope army airfield side where uh. there's a tap unit there. and i get i go over there and i'm the. group level. operations superintendent as a master. sergeant in e7. and i'm like man i'm going to relearn. baseline tacky fundamentals i'm going to. get a breather with kathy and it's going. to be great. i was there three months three months. and i opened up my email one day and i. get the email from. the air force saying congratulations on. your assignment. the air force decided it was in my best. interest to send me to korea for a year. by myself after 16 combat deployments. and with a wife who was diagnosed with. heart disease. after some heart attacks that i probably. had a hand in. and uh and and she's on the exceptional.

Family members program. so i'm going for a year i'm going by. myself and it. really kind of sucked um knowing that. that's what was going to after like i. said 16 deployments. now but now we face a year and a half or. a year in korea alone. uh if you will i do my year there. it goes by fast um facetime was a. wonderful invention back. for that time 2015 or i could just pick. up the phone. facetime with my wife off wifi and keep. some sense of a connection. 2017 we moved to hawaii best thing that. ever happened to us. assignment lives that time in hawaii. allowed us to rekindle. and realize that there were problems in. our relationship that i wasn't even. aware of. and allowed us to focus on those because. my ops template was low. and i was a senior master of the time. however i was in a dark spot. um mentally i admitted myself to mental.

Health. uh behavioral health there and and was. going through some. some treatments where i was going to be. potentially diagnosed as a. high functioning uh posttraumatic. stress guy meaning not medicated i can. go about life i can do my thing. you know and and the thing is is as much. as i would like to say. i suffered you know and and and you know. boohoo. myself it's really the extension of who. i am. that suffered more than i did and that's. that's my family and uh. and there's so much more to to this. story and i'll tell you. audience you know 20 minutes just just. doesn't give it justice you know and. so when we look back on all these things. and and we could say okay. you've been talking for 20ish minutes. what's the point in all this. well the point of it is is another. definition of resiliency. is uh and i'm going to look over at my.

Notes real quick. is you know it's the ability or the. capability of returning to original form. shape or position after being compressed. think about our resiliency kind of like. a slinky. you push it it expands push it explains. it walks up it walks downstairs it does. all these things and. i really tied the human aspect of that. kind of kind of to that analogy. you know our mission as. as members of the military you know it. can and will compress our relationships. all relationships you know uh not just. our our spouses our wives our kids our. husbands. um our mothers our fathers but also with. with our foundation and whatever faith. we have. you know it it absolutely compressed my. relationship with who i believe is my. creator. in my faith you know and really at the. end of the day you know having a state. of awareness to know when when.

We need a timeout a mental checkup is. the key to our survival in the real. world you know and if i would. you know me raising my hand and saying i. just need i just i need a break i need a. break but. the mantra was always just give us one. more just give us one more. and i did and i kept giving one more. when we get to that point and you're. walking down the road. or you're somewhere in a park i don't. know name your name your place and. and you know kids though love this song. let it go from the movie frozen. personally i can't stand that movie at. this point because i've heard it a. million times but the song let it go. it doesn't matter what the words are you. know but you let it go. be aware if. i'm going to recant a little bit on that. one for the cadets listening to this. and for the leaders listening to this.

we have a responsibility we have to be. aware we have to be be needed we have to. be needed. and we need to always listen to. understand not just to hear. so with that being said like i said i. don't believe 20 minutes really can give. this testimony justice. um i hope i have hit the intent. i hope i have reached something i hope i. have reached someone. and i'm on the global you can find me. you ever need to reach out. i'm available thank you for your time. you