Air Force ROTC cadets get a lesson in core values from the top, as General Douglas Fraser, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, visits UM.
General Douglas Fraser, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, addresses ROTC cadets at UM's Learning Center last Friday.
From the very first day Jonathan Paz joined the University of Miami’s Air Force ROTC detachment, his commanding officers always stressed the branch’s core values of integrity first, service before self, and excellence.
But this time the lesson was coming from the very top.
“When you join the military, you join a profession of honor,” General Douglas Fraser, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, told a Leadership Laboratory class of about 60 cadets on the UM campus last Friday. His visit was at the invitation of Lieutenant Colonel Theo Theodor Jr., commander of UM’s Air Force ROTC unit.
During Fraser’s one-hour talk to the cadets, he stressed the importance of integrity and honesty, “courage to do the right thing,” and listening and learning. He told them such qualities apply not only to the Air Force but all facets of life.
A 1975 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Fraser explained to the cadets that while the Air Force is competitive, it is a branch of the Armed Forces filled with opportunities. He noted that careers are possible in everything from medicine to aviation, and that it even offers a chance to enter the space program.
“It depends on what you have the capacity to do and are willing to do,” he said.
ROTC cadets listen intently to General Fraser's remarks.
The general pointed out that the cadets should be prepared to perform a variety of tasks and “adjust to different circumstances,” something military personnel were required to do while involved in earthquake relief efforts in Haiti.
To demonstrate his point, Fraser shared photos of soldiers of various rank performing a variety of tasks in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince—a Marine gunnery sergeant assisting an injured earthquake victim, a captain distributing food to the homeless and displaced. Such photos, he said, “demonstrate the diversity of opportunity that exists when you join the Armed Forces.”
Fraser then took a moment to explain some of the challenges the Southern Command encountered while in Haiti, such as coordinating the landings and takeoffs of some 160 flights a day on a single airfield at the damaged Port-au-Prince airport.
He noted that medical crews aboard the Navy hospital ship Comfort, which recently departed Haiti after spending weeks there treating the wounded, reported seeing many injuries that were worse than those they have encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Fraser also talked about the critical role U.S. Southcom plays in supporting Latin America’s law enforcement agencies to stem the flow of drug trafficking in the region.
Cadet Paz, a UM senior majoring in civil engineering who will be stationed at Patrick Air Force Base in Cocoa Beach, Florida, when he graduates in May, said the general did an effective job of putting the Air Force’s core values into real-world perspective.
“It something we stress here constantly,” Paz said. “So it was good for us to hear it from someone of General Fraser’s stature.”
The Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science’s aquaculture team participated in the 2010 World Aquaculture Society’s Aquaculture America Conference in San Diego last week. The conference is the largest and most important such event in the field, drawing more than 3,000 attendees. Graduate students, research associates, postdocs, and faculty from UM’s aquaculture program delivered eight presentations on scientific, technological, environmental, business, and economic topics related to raising cobia, tuna, and goggle-eye using sustainable aquaculture methods.
