Let's Talk UNLV

Unknown Speaker 0:00
This is a k u and v studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Unknown Speaker 0:20
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Let's Talk to you in OB public radio KU NB 91.5. I'm here with my wonderful co host, Dr. Sami scales.

Unknown Speaker 0:30
Hello, everyone, and thanks for listening. We have a wonderful show lined up for you today. We have Captain sledge and we have Captain Sutton US Air Force.

Unknown Speaker 0:39
And I am Dr. Tanya crowd. Welcome to the discussion.

Unknown Speaker 0:43
Great. I want to let's jump right into this. Let's start with Captain sudden Could you tell us please Captain Sutton How did you tell us your backstory First we'd like to start with the backstory. Sure, sure. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 0:53
Yeah. So named Pierre. So Catherine Pierre Sutton. I'm from Illinois. So I say Illinois because I lived all over Chicago, the Chicagoland area. So grew up on the south side of Chicago, then junior high high school college, went to moved out to the northwest suburbs, Hoffman estates through my mom and everybody lives where I met my wife. That's where my kids and my sister live. And then we had a house out in Elgin, Illinois. So that's where I'm from. And how do I end up at UNLV? Well, I applied through the air force to be a Air Force ROTC associate professor here at UNLV. Thankfully, I picked up there was only one slot open, one slot available. I apply for it. I actually stayed an extra year in North Dakota, in order to apply to be eligible to apply for that job. So I was very grateful and thankful that I that I was able to get it. So that's how I got here.

Unknown Speaker 1:55
Sounds like destiny. That's right. That's right. I hear destiny. Thank

Unknown Speaker 1:58
you for your cold service.

Unknown Speaker 2:01
And Captain sledge.

Unknown Speaker 2:03
Okay. So yeah, so my backstory. I'm from San Diego, California. That's my hometown. I love it. It's a upbringing was a was definitely difficult. Definitely a challenge from the southeast San Diego is definitely you had to know what to do and how to get around and how to, you know, live your life out there. I stayed out there until I was about 12 years old. And then I went to go live with my dad in Chicago. So I was right down the street from him didn't even know it. Right. Southside of Chicago man, I didn't know food until I got there. I didn't know food until I got to Harold's and all those delicious places to eat at very dangerous place and deep. After that, I, you know, turned 18. And then I went back to San Diego hung there for about a year. And then I joined the United States Air Force from San Diego. How I got to UNLV. Same thing I applied. I was at Creech Air Force Base out there in Indian Springs, Nevada, as a Cyber Operations Officer for a test group. And I saw the opportunity pop up and I said, Look, I want to do more. I want to pour all these years into the Air Force back into the new generation. That was what drove me. And that's why I'm here today.

Unknown Speaker 3:23
All right. All right. Wonderful. So I have a couple of questions. How long have you both been in respectively? Were you in the Air Force respectively?

Unknown Speaker 3:33
So I've been in it'll be 18 years for me in June. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 3:37
In May, it will be 20 years from me.

Unknown Speaker 3:39
Okay, so now the question is your wow, why the Air Force? What drew you to the Air Force in particular, and either one of you whoever feels comfortable answering first, please feel free to jump on. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 3:54
I'll go first. I like blue. As crazy as that sounds, it sounds shallow. Um, that was a part of it. But my dad who was a Vietnam veteran, his name is Milton Kelce. He was Navy. And one thing he sat me down and told me he said, if you're gonna do that, go go Air Force, quality of life is just different. And I would encourage I would see all the Air Force people doing the thing and I'd be under this condition and they they know nothing about that. Right? And he's like, your material, your Air Force material go write that if you got to do it go. So that's kind of what pivoted me and guided me in that direction.

Unknown Speaker 4:35
Alright, so interestingly enough, out of high school, when I first graduated high school, I was going to join the Marines. So that's I wanted to be a Marine, right? But my dad was like, now like, you know, basically, he was like, you know, you're good academically, like I was, I was, you know, running track. I went to the Junior Olympics and stuff like that. And so he's like, No, go go away to school. run track, you know, see what college life is like. And he was like, the military going nowhere. And so that was when I was 18. I ended up joining the Air Force when I was 25. And part of the reason why I chose the Air Force, I had friends who were in the Air Force, I had friends who in all of the branches, but it was my friends that were in the Air Force, I was like, Okay, if, if I if I go into the military, you know, the Air Force seems to be more so the branch that I want to go into, for those same reasons, quality of life, and just the mission, and also the different types of jobs that I was interested in, like airport management, working on planes, like, literally, like if you want to work on planes, and that's what I wanted to do when I was 25. I wanted to work on planes, like, you got to go to the Air Force, no better other No, no greater place to go. But the Air Force. So that's how I ended up in the air force.

Unknown Speaker 5:57
Wow. So can you talk us through the process of students here at UNLV? If they want it, why and a student if they wanted to become a part of the ROTC program at UNLV? And what were the qualifications? What do students have to do to become a part? Sure, yeah. Yeah. So

Unknown Speaker 6:15
here, so not only do we do, you know, our, our assistant professor duties here, with ROTC, but we also have additional duties. So one of my additional duties is the recruiting officer, education officer. So it's a great question for me to answer. The threshold. For Air Force ROTC for freshmen like folks from from high school is pretty low, all they have to do is get accepted to either UNLV CSN, so College of Southern Nevada, or Nevada State University, they just got to be accepted. And the reason that is, is because we don't, especially with them being so young, right, so we're, we're looking at, you know, 1718 year olds, and then projecting when they are 20 to 23 years old, right? So they're still very young, some of them might not have done very well in high school, didn't enjoy high school, but the fact that they took the initiative and say, you know, what, I still want to better myself, right? I still want to go to college. So we say, okay, all right, you know, what, we're not gonna, we're not gonna hold anything against you as far as like academically, or, you know, to a certain extent, character wise, you know, kids make mistakes. It just depends on how long ago that mistake was made, you know, we can get certain waivers and things like that, that our detachment commander can can, you know, approve, to allow them to join. But that's, that's the sole reason why we want them to be you know, college students, we just, they just need the acceptance letter, they need to, so they need to be a college student, they need to expect to be a full time college student in the fall semester. So whatever semester fall or spring, summer, whatever semester, they plan on joining the Air Force ROTC program, they have to be a full time student. Reason being is we don't want you part time in it. And then it takes you instead of four years to go off and become that second lieutenant and go, you know, lead Airman and guardians, it's eight years because you're slow dripping your, your commission. And so we need you, we need them to finish that college degree in four years. So so that's that's one. So we had

Unknown Speaker 8:27
the course was what, what qualifications do they need?

Unknown Speaker 8:30
Okay, okay. Yep. Yeah, yeah. So they, they are accepted to one of those three schools, they have there, they expect to be a full time student, they'll complete what's called the wings application. So that's like the official Air Force ROTC application that they'll fill out, they'll fill that out, they'll do a little perspective Cadet questionnaire that we have, where they'll basically it'll be just like this, like, Okay, well tell me why do you want to be an officer? And it's no, it's no like, word requirement. Like, they don't have to do a certain number of words or anything like that. It's just for them to get used to being able to articulate themselves in writing for this, what they're going to have to do as commissioned officers, they're gonna have to do they're going to be able to stand up in front of, you know, the, the commander of US Global Strike command, and, and vie for their people, they're going to need to be able to put that information, you know, do that in the written form. So we asked them to answer those three questions. And then after that, we'll, we'll do a little qualification and make sure that they, they they fit as far as like, they filled out all the information correctly. Send us their letter of acceptance, and then they can come on in they'll have to be physically fit. So when I say physically fit, meaning they have to be able to participate in our physical training, we do physical training, twice a week. So they will have to be able to participate in that So they should come in as physically fit as possible. But most of them most folks, you know, civilians, they're not prepared to PT likely. PTU is what we call called physical and they're not, they're just not ready for it. So we give them time throughout their first academic year two, to get, you know, to meet standards and exceed those standards.

Unknown Speaker 10:24
You know, so fun fact, I almost joined the Air Force. Okay. Yeah, that was actually the first branch that I looked into. And that quality of life piece is real. No regrets, I absolutely adored my time in the service. But while we're on the conversation, I think maybe there might be some misunderstandings around in terms of the type of person that the service attracts, you know, so in terms of characteristics, what type of human are you looking for? Beyond the, you know, you can get them ready physically, in terms of getting them up to speed? Yep. But what are you looking specifically in terms of characteristics of the people that come across your desk? How do you know that they might be a good person for your organization? So

Unknown Speaker 11:03
I would say that people who have grit, people who have solid character, right, and we what does that mean? People who are looking towards self improving and improving others, right? These are the things that we look for, we can make pilots all day long, we can make cyber technicians we can, we can do that all day long. But the baseline that we're looking for people of character, we want people to be able to, here's a standard, I've got to meet and exceed it. Right. And I'm going to encourage others to do so as well, I'm not going to sit there and exceed the standard and then watch, you know, Johnny Smith, not do it. Right, I'm going to hold them to that, right, as a supervisor and a leader of people, right, I'm going to be able to take information that I can see from my experience, and provide that confidently to it accurately to a commander who makes decisions about where our service is going to where our country is going, I need you to have that competence. I need you to have you to utilize your experience. Because everybody has different experiences. That's the diversity of this whole thing that we love. Right? I need you to utilize that and tell other people what your experiences and what you recommend. So we can make decisions here. And we can get to strategically what we're trying to go. So as we go through this ROTC process, it's a four or five year interview. It is a four or five year interview, just because you hit a certain milestone doesn't mean you're done. You're not done until you're done. It is like kindergarten, everything you need to know you learned in kindergarten, but you're gonna make mistakes. And that's okay, as long as you're accountable. Right? As long as you admit those in understand the second third, fourth effects. That's what we're looking for. We understand you're not going to have it down. That's what we're here for. That's what your team is here for you. We want you to make mistakes. That's the this is a time in the place to do that. That's what we mean character. We will teach you the rest on the way.

Unknown Speaker 12:59
Is there a boot camp of any kind because I know that in the Navy A while ago, there was like Great Lakes Illinois that you know, the sailors would go to, well, people would go to to become sailors. Is there a bootcamp? Where's the boot camp for? The Air Force?

Unknown Speaker 13:15
Mecca? The Air Force Mecca that is that'd be Maxwell Air Force Base. So And where's that located? That is in Montgomery, Alabama, Alabama. That's our Meccan is that the only place and

Unknown Speaker 13:28
so we have to say that sir. Montgomery, Alabama. Maxwell is where officers go. So that's where all of our commissioned officers go for their basic military officer training and beyond. So up to four star generals, everybody go back for their their education at Maxwell booth basic military training for enlisted that's at sunny San Antonio. So Lackland joint joint base Lackland. San Antonio,

Unknown Speaker 13:55
how long is that? For enlisted? How long is eight

Unknown Speaker 13:58
weeks, eight and a half weeks nowadays? Okay. It changes and varies. But depending on what these strategic leaders need, and what the warfighters need, that adjusts how much you know, basic training and lengthen things that we need to fit in. If we need more of something, then eventually you'll come from the combatant commanders saying, hey, we need you guys to have the skill set.

Unknown Speaker 14:17
So a couple of things that I heard that I really that really excited me first of all that passion, though, that passion came right through. Yeah, you could definitely I could I could be wrong. I could feel that passion when you're talking. But while we're on the conversation of different rank structures, I don't know that everyone understands enlisted versus officer and what the requirements are and how ROTC is different than say, just enlisting in the military. So can you speak to that? Sure.

Unknown Speaker 14:42
Yeah. Yeah. So with the rank structure in the military, you have the enlisted corps so that's that's 80%. Of any any department defense. Armed Forces branch is mainly enlisted. So these are for the Air Force. It's our our Airmen, all the way up through our, our noncommissioned officer, sorry, NCO. So, so at the at the bottom you have or at the lower rank, the lowest rank, you have airman basic, and at the highest rank, ie nine, you have, you know, Chief Master Sergeant, then on the officer side, so the majority of the enlisted corps, you know, we're, that's the backbone, right? We call them the backbone of the Air Force, they're the ones getting the job done, right. So they are the ones when you pull up to the gate, you know, at the gate, the gate guard, the security forces airmen out there, the defender, that's, that's an airman you know, that's a, that's an airman that's a staff sergeant Tech Sergeant maybe. And so majority job is the is the tactical, what we call on the tactical level. So doing that thing, right, doing the mission, right. So whether it's whether it's running the gym facilities, whether it's out actually building runways, and fixing runways, and things like that on a runway, so that our pilots and everybody can take off and do their jobs, or sitting in the air traffic control tower. Right, they do that as well. So our airmen are highly technical, they are truly the true subject matter experts when it comes to the different areas and mission sets that we have, right. So they had a technical experts. And so there you have us, who are the Commissioned Officer, so for us, you, you started off as a second lieutenant. And he basically coming in, as in that mid manager, like mid management level, to where on the enlisted side, you got to work your way up, you know, like the old McDonald's, you know, like Calvin, remember, Calvin will make started with the fries, you know, floors this week is the fries, and then eventually he became the manager. But you know, it was a person when Calvin was still mopping those floors. It was a person that came in as a manager because they either had a college degree or certain managerial skills, X, no experience, to where they can come right in and be that manager. So that's what, that's what a commissioned officers, that's what a second lieutenants are. So they get the same sort of officer training, right, while they're in college, typically. So the Air Force ROTC or at the Air Force Academy, or for like myself and Captain sledge, we actually enlisted fires finished our college degrees, our bachelor's degrees while we were in, in the military as as you know, NCOs, noncommissioned officers. And then we applied for officer training school. Okay, and we got selected that way.

Unknown Speaker 17:36
So if I understand you correctly, noncommissioned officers usually don't have degrees when they first enter, and you can go to college and get your degree and apply to be a commissioned officer. Great. Okay, so that's the difference between enlisted and officers officers,

Unknown Speaker 17:53
really and nowadays that the date of the truth because because everybody, so everyone has some sort of secondary education. Now, for the most part, even even a list that like I said, I had, I had two associate's degrees when I enlisted. So I was able to, instead of coming in as an E one I came in as an E three. So instead of an airman basic, I came in as an Airman First Class. But so I had to finish my degree, my bachelor's degree, but we have airmen that come in like as with master's degrees in basketball, so the only true difference is, between that person that's enlisting is the route they chose. They, like this person went and saw an enlisted recruiter that's always out on the streets, right. And those are the ones that we know, that's out on the streets where Air Force ROTC recruiters, we are, we are actually also the mindset the professor's right, carrying out the mission. And so we do the recruiting on the site, we mainly recruit students that are already in college. Those are that's the way that most people find out about ROTC. So that's really the biggest difference. And then so they that person with a degree, they've completed a officer, Basic Officer Training. That's the difference. So we have we have students, we have folks who left our program, they have bachelor's degrees, but they didn't finish our program. And so they didn't get the officer qualification. They didn't get commissioned as second lieutenants. So they didn't complete the officer training. But they still get their college degree from UNLV. And then they go work somewhere else. But and so that's, that's truly the difference if you want to add to it.

Unknown Speaker 19:38
Yeah. One thing I do want to add on is is the origins of power. Right? So a lot of people don't know the difference when we take different oaths enlistment. You take a different oath than an officer. Right? The it you have to realize where your power comes from. As officers. Our power comes from our senior leaders, our our President, our Are Congress, right? That's where in order to make into or to do our job effectively, we have been empowered to make decisions that shape our country, that's given to the officers Discharge the duties of the office upon which I'm about to enter that sound. That is the same oath that the Vice President takes, which is similar to what the President takes, we as officers take that oath. Right. Enlisted is is different is obey the orders of the officers who I'm under, right, it's always your origin of power, that kind of definitely sets the scale, and realizes who is who, at the end of the day, on deploying that weapon, I'm doing this, I'm doing that, and I need, I need your support in order to do that, and make that happen. And everyone understands that they understand that relationship, they understand that balance. So just, it's a lot to understand what the difference is between enlisted an officer but the Origins is literally what oath you take, and we are held to that. And we reaffirm it you will we will we promote, we reaffirm that you need to understand the words it because that's what we do.

Unknown Speaker 21:03
Okay, sounds good. Captain Sutton, you mentioned that talked about teaching and students. So you teach aerospace studies here? Could you tell us what that is? Because clearly, I have no clue. And I'm thinking it's a bunch of math. Ya know, anytime I think of a bunch of math. So could you tell us about that class? And what is about what the students are learning to help them?

Unknown Speaker 21:31
Yeah, so aerospace studies is, so it's really just the it's the curriculum that we got all of our all of our officers that the United States Air Force department, Air Force chooses that we want all of five foundational, like conflicts that we didn't want all of our officers to know. Right? So it's aerospace, I know aerospace, it makes it sounds more, you know, more technical and things like that. But it's really as simple as, like, I teach the, the one hundreds or the traditional freshmen. And it's, it's history and heritage of the Department of the Air Force. Like, that's what I teach. And so we're gonna teach them about, you know, the history of like, where the airforce came from how we came out of the Army Air Corps, right, we used to be a part of the Army, and then we, we separate into a separate branch, talking about, you know, the rank structure, how we just talked about the rank structure, the difference between the ranks and things like that. The different bases and the different operational levels within the Department of the Air Force, our core values, of course, right, that's what sets us apart. And even though all branches have no set of core values, when ours are specific to us. And so that's, that's part of it. And then we have our 200 level, where they learn team building, and leadership, a little bit more leadership qualities, and that's in the classroom. So this, these things I'm talking about that I instruct this in the classroom. So they show up to my class at 830, you know, to 920, Tuesday and Wednesday, and I instruct them to do this cabinet slash does the same thing with his with his junior his with his junior class, right. And they're talking about communication, team building, and then our deck commander, he teaches as well. So he teaches the upper class, so the singers, the folks getting ready when they're getting ready to, to go to the Air Force, or to the Space Force, like right before they graduate, and get that second lieutenant commission. Colonel Lieutenant Colonel young, right, so the debt commander, he teaches them about national security know in the ways of the Air Force and things like that. And so that's us. That's our teaching part. And then our cadets, so the cadet wing, they are seniors, and our juniors, that's in our program. They are all they also teach, right? Because that's part of our job. Part of our job is to make another make our own replacement, right. And so the seniors and juniors in our program, or the members of what's called the professional officers corps, they run what's called the cadet wing. And so they are in charge of making sure that when it comes to the practical application of those days, knowing how to march, the cadets knowing how to wear their uniforms properly, knowing how to PT, living up to those physical fitness standards, living up to those core value standards, and they execute that on on Fridays for two hours, then it's called Leadership laboratory. And that's all on the cadets myself, Captain sledge, Colonel young Tech's aren't Riggleman our NCOs we just step back, we're just there to observe and advise as needed, but it's their show, because we want them to get that practical use of, you know, of knowing how to how to leave folks, right because it's not a what we do the business that we're in, it's a people business, first of all, and so that's what we tell them like you got to be about the people. That doesn't matter what your mission is right now. Your mission Next to march and make sure they know how to march. But in Unreal Air Force, we don't March, right. But we actually we go out to or we deploy, we do things like that. And so you need to start putting those, putting those exercising those muscles, so to speak, before you actually get out there to the Air Force. And so that's what, that's aerospace studies basically, in a nutshell. You

Unknown Speaker 25:24
know, honestly, as I listened to it, um, first of all, I'm like, flashing back to my own training. But as I listen to it, the word that comes to mind is transformative. Yeah, there's a transformation that's taking place from who they are to who they will become as they make their way. I'm wondering, in terms of the student piece of it, how is all of this integrated with the students? Do they need to consider a particular major? Or how does this work with their, you know, day to day getting an education and a degree? How does? How does? Can you tell me a little bit about that? So

Unknown Speaker 25:56
fortunately, fortunately, we, anybody from anywhere can come through ROTC, we have folks from art all the way to mechanical engineering. We ask them, What do you want? What do you want to be, and sometimes they don't know, that's fine. We'll learn this is a five year interview process. So once we figure out what they what they need, and we get academic plans, and all that other stuff like that, we get a feel of what they're trying to do. And we start vectoring them in that direction. They changed directions all the time, we're advisors, our job is to give them information so they can make a decision. Ironically, they do the same thing when they become second lieutenants, to their field grade officers, right? We teach them again, there are replacements. So we teach them that. So as they go along there, their academia, the we set them on a vector path, and as long as they follow that path, and do well and do what we're told them to, effectively, they are on their way. That's pretty much how it goes. Wow. Okay. Yeah. And

Unknown Speaker 26:55
they also have to be very good college students. So it's no one in our program. I think our average, what is our GPA? Average? 3.3. So anything below anything that three 3.0? Anything below three point? No, it's not, it's not cutting the mustard. Right? Because we also not only want to be those leaders, but you got it. Like I said, You got to show improve, right? Like our our standard is excellence is not perfection, right? But it's excellence. Right? 9092 is still still very good, right? So we make sure that, that they understand that as well. So

Unknown Speaker 27:31
we have a minute or so left final words? How would someone reach out to you how if someone is listening in to say I'm super interested in this, what is the best way for them to get into contact with you and the ROTC program yet. So the

Unknown Speaker 27:45
best way is actually to set us up through our org box. Because that's 24/7 we can get whatever information they're looking forward to them very quick. And that's at a f rotc@unlv.edu. They can also go to our website. And on our website, we have all the qualifications we have videos on like Cadet life and things like that. And we also have a video that talks goes in depth. It's like a 25 minute video that goes in depth about Air Force ROTC and commissioning. And they can find that at unlv.edu/a F our OTC slash join j o i n. And they can also give us a call at 702-875-5313. And our admin assistant can take down the information and get that to me and I'll and I'll reach out to him.

Unknown Speaker 28:35
Thank you so much for your service and your sacrifice. Thanks for having us. And thank you for giving us some time, my time out of your day.

Unknown Speaker 28:44
Excellent. Excellent. Well in like 10 seconds, could you give us any closing remarks,

Unknown Speaker 28:50
you will be challenged, you will be challenged and we will make sure that it's okay. Like to know it's okay to make mistakes, but have the courage to make mistakes so we can help you out. Excellent

Unknown Speaker 29:01
deposition. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 29:03
I would say the same thing you will be challenged but understand that failure is a part of it. And we actually we push you to fail a lot of times we we put you in situations to fail so that you can grow from it. You can grow that callus and understand that it's not you know, it's not things aren't always life or death or whatever. And they're not as major as they as they seem to be. But if I can do it, they can definitely do it. So Excellent.

Unknown Speaker 29:28
Excellent. Thank you gentlemen, so very much. Well, again, thank you for your service. Thank you for this interview here at podcast.

Dr. Renee Watson 29:34
Thank you so much for thanks for having me, that's a wrap. For more or less talk to UNLV. Be sure to follow us on social media where you can get the latest updates on the show plus great behind the scenes content. We're on Facebook and let's talk about all the podcast Twitter and let's talk UNLV and Instagram and let's talk UNLV

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