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# Allvin: 'This is our time of consequence'

              - Published  Feb. 13, 2024
              - Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs

**AURORA, Colo. (AFNS) --  **
Only hours after Air Force leaders announced sweeping changes to “reoptimize” the service, one of the plan’s architects, Air Force Chief of Staff **Gen. David Allvin**, told a large and influential audience Feb. 13 that the effort kicks off in a “time of consequence” in Air Force history.Allvin’s keynote remarks at the AFA Warfare Symposium put the ambitious reoptimization in historical terms, linking it in significance to the consequential eras preceding well known shifts in Air Force history such as Doolittle’s raid on Japan, the Berlin Airlift, and more historic events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall.“Since the dawn of airpower, our proud heritage in history has been intertwined with key events in combat that have shaped ... a nation and in some cases, the world. Those are seminal events,” Allvin told a crowd of several thousand Airmen, Guardians, industry and elected officials, and retired personnel.    
Air Force Chief of Staff  Gen. David Allvin delivers a keynote address on the state of the U.S. Air Force during the Air and Space Forces Association 2024 Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colo., Feb. 13, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Olivia Stecker)
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“This was an amazing time in history, and I will never forget that for as long as I live,” he said. “The fall of the Berlin Wall was a seminal event. ... Did air power contribute to it? You’re damn right it did. There was relentless readiness; a demonstration that, yes, in the backdrop of the Cold War the strategic deterrence that underpinned it, our Airmen were ready to meet the challenge.”

Air Force Chief of Staff  Gen. David Allvin delivers a keynote address on the state of the U.S. Air Force during the Air and Space Forces Association 2024 Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colo., Feb. 13, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Olivia Stecker)
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“What’s our next seminal event? I don’t know,” he said. “But I do know that right now we are in a time of consequence. What we do now matters.”In relaying the Air Force’s key moments in history, Allvin said focus and dedication to everyday jobs is critical. Doing that and being ready and agile, he said, ensures “that we will continue to reinvent ourselves into the future to be the most dominant Air Force in the world.”Doolittle’s raid on Japan in 1942 was audacious and historic.But it was the air power theorists and the aviation innovators, living and working in a time of consequence prior to Doolittle’s Raid, that shaped the seminal event, Allvin said.The Air Force of today must apply that same strategy and mindset to be successful. The Total Force, he said, must be comfortable theorizing, working hard, pushing boundaries, and testing new ideas.Despite uncertainty and challenges, Allvin suggested that this history means those uncertainties and challenges will be met yet again, that the Air Force has the talent, drive, and culture to adapt, find the necessary solutions and put them to effective use.Allvin closed with a clear, unambiguous call to action to the Total Force and to those who lead.“This is our time of consequence. What we do, the decisions we make, the actions we take, the Airmen we lead, and the way we do it, will define that next seminal event,” he said.“We will not turn away. We will lean into it. ... The stakes are high. And the time is now.”

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