My educational journey: If I can do it, anyone can! Published Dec. 5, 2011 By Chief Master Sergeant Eric R. Jaren Air Force Materiel Command Command Chief WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, Ohio -- Air Force Materiel Command's "2011 Year of the Community College of the Air Force" campaign has been a smashing success. Over the past twelve months, more than 700 volunteer mentors sought face-to-face contact with 10,009 Airmen to encourage education. Their efforts resulted in 1,685 graduates at our bases, the most in the history of the command. Mentors met with their mentees to discuss degree plans, explain resources available through the base education office and share their educational journey. The stories described finding time for classes amid long hours, deployments, rigorous inspections, local exercises, transfers from one base to another and night shifts. Whatever the challenge, going to school wasn't easy. Those stories, however, turned out to be the simple secret to YoCCAF's success. Mentors reached out to people in a personal way and said, "If I can do it, you can too." As 2011 nears an end, it is my honor to share my educational journey. Over the years I have enrolled in a variety of schools. I disenrolled just about as many times. In the early '90s, I was taking weekend courses for an industrial engineering degree but lost my weekends off. This was before online school, so I had to drop the program. Later I was working toward a professional aeronautics degree, but dozens of temporary duties, deployments and military schools kept me on the road. But I wasn't complaining. As a crew chief, "bending" wrenches was extremely rewarding. And the only thing better than turning wrenches was bending them on a TDY! Travel brought me to some 40 countries. One year I witnessed the sun rise in Egypt in the spring and saw as it set in Antarctica in the fall ... only to witness it rise again five minutes later. The mission brought great satisfaction. It also armed me with a ready excuse. There was never time for school. There were always distractions, like breaking 80 in golf, pressing 400 pounds on the bench, spiking the volleyball 90 mph and jumping ocean waves in my 28-foot offshore racer. Sure, I'd take a class here and there, but there was no real focus. Oh yeah, let's not forget softball, football, fishing, camping, and hours of mindless video games. There was no time to finish school for the better part of my career. It all boiled down to priorities -- and school wasn't one. But that changed in 2007. It was my first day in a new online sociology class and I was typing my introduction to new classmates. My comments explained how I assumed a new position, had upcoming business trips and would be filling in for the command chief, etc, etc, etc. In reality, the note was simply a laundry list of reasons to drop out. Just before I posted it on the blackboard, another message popped up: "Hi Classmates." The message described the story of a single mother who had four children. She was working three jobs and was enrolled in three undergraduate classes to accelerate her degree. She was trying to graduate early to receive a promotion so she could quit her two part time jobs. This was a person determined to achieve a goal to make a better life for her family. How admirable was that? I realized I had never committed to my educational goal. Since 2007, her story has inspired me to lay concrete plans. It fueled me to finish up my undergraduate degree and catapulted me through my graduate program. Her story has been a topic of many of my speeches, conversations and stories because it exemplifies a fundamental truth best said by Henry Ford: "Whether you think you can or can't, you're right!" It's about perspective. Since then, anytime my plate has seemed full I only remind myself of her inspirational story to regain my focus. In fact, as I write this, I am in the final class for an executive certificate at the University of Notre Dame. And like so many others, I promise, "If I can do it, anyone can!"