Photo By Airman 1st Class Devin Morgan | U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Joshua Thaxton, commandant of the CMSAF Bud Andrews Airman...... read more read more
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SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. — Watching the ruck line step off just after sunrise is like watching his year-long idea come to fruition.
The sound of boots hitting the frozen ground in steady rhythm as Airman Leadership School students move across the field with radios, training rifles and the weight that comes when leadership is no longer theoretical.
This is not the ALS assignment many of our senior noncommissioned officers grew up with.
Walking beside the formation, watching the class navigate uncertainty and fatigue, calling out corrections when needed and letting silence teach where possible. He knew this type of leadership had to be experienced — felt in the cold, under pressure, and in the space where decisions suddenly carry weight.
For U.S. Air Force, Master Sgt. Joshua Thaxton, 375th Force Support Squadron CMSAF Bud Andrews Airman Leadership School commandant, this wasn’t just another training day.
It was an idea coming to life…the quiet, full-circle moment that began a year earlier with a hard “no,” that led to the unexpected detour that sharpened his perspective and revealed the work he was meant to do.
One year ago, Thaxton applied to serve as the ALS commandant and was not selected for his dream job.
“It was a huge… ego crush, right? A big check to the gut,” he said. “It hurt.”
Though he was originally passed up for the role, he leaned into the role the Air Force needed him to fill — wing readiness superintendent — a job that, while he didn’t know it at the time, would equip him with everything he needed.
As wing readiness superintendent, he and former Marine, Sean-Michael Reany, were responsible for strengthening foundational combat skills across the installation: weapons handling, radio communication, tactical combat casualty care, CBRN, CPR, dismounted movement and the ability to keep operating as stress closes in. They became innovators of a well-known, transformative week-long training experience at Scott known as the Warrior Airmen Readiness (WAR) course.
“Wing leadership’s mission for us was simple, but not easy. We needed to get the Airmen of Scott Air Force Base ready for all aspects of combat, and to do it yesterday,” Thaxton said.
As the curriculum progressed and the program grew in training quality and intensity, something else became clear: he found Airmen of all ranks struggling to move, shoot and communicate.
“It wasn’t because they lacked ability,” he said. “They just rarely practice leadership under pressure in an environment outside of their work centers. The newer generation of Airmen are smarter, faster and extremely resourceful. So, we needed to capitalize on that.”
One rotation in particular stays with him. A 13-person squad led by a Field Grade Officer and SNCOs who struggled to accomplish basic tasks.
“There was a lack of communication first and foremost,” he said. “Orders didn’t flow from squad leader to fire team leaders, and feedback didn’t come back up. People missed show times and all the rest.”
“I’m not so much worried about those four individuals,” Thaxton said. “I’m worried about that brand-new one-striper who just showed up to a team. That SNCO or Officer, who should be the pinnacle of leadership to them, wasn’t confident enough to make those tough decisions in the field under stressful conditions. That sows fear. And fear sows indecision. That’s when I really noticed — this is a systemic problem.”
The issue wasn’t readiness in terms of capability. It was a diluted mindset that bred a culture. To some, the instinct to deploy, survive and fight if called had dulled over years of relative calm. From Thaxton’s civil engineer background, being ready was non-negotiable.
“What I need from my NCOs is to be aggressive decision makers,” he said. “Not jerks but confident in their capabilities to make hard decisions.”
The bridge between readiness and leadership development appeared unexpectedly in an auditorium.
During a routine Ready Airman Training brief at the base theater, Thaxton stood on stage talking through contested-environment training when the then-ALS commandant, Master Sgt. Chad Marcus, listened from the audience. Not long before, Marcus had been selected for the very position Thaxton once hoped to fill.
After the brief, Marcus approached him, curious whether elements of the WAR Course could be integrated into ALS.
It was at that moment, something clicked for Thaxton. If ‘budding NCOs’ were the next supervisors, then leadership under pressure needed to start with them, in a place where failure was safe enough to become learning.
That conversation sparked a new field-focused day at ALS. While serving at the readiness facility, Thaxton worked with Marcus and the ALS cadre to reimagine an existing Mission Command and Operational Concept lessons, blending classroom concepts with a field exercise centered on communication under stress, small-unit movement and decision-making with limited information.
Then something big happened for Thaxton. His dream to lead the ALS team became a reality.
When Marcus was promoted out of the commandant position, Thaxton applied again and got the job. This time, with new eyes, clear intentions and a readiness philosophy forged by a depth of vision acquired from that very detour.
With Thaxton as ALS commandant and with the support of his Readiness Training Facility successor, Master Sgt. John McDonald, the field exercise expanded and matured.
“We built this course through several iterations until we got to where we are today — a full-day, large-scale training event,” said McDonald.
Thaxton began to see that Scott was not alone in their endeavor. Other ALS commandants at places like Luke Air Force Base and the U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst were independently building similar combat-leadership experiences into their ALS programs.
“We thought we were the frontier,” Thaxton said. “And then we saw other ALSs doing it too. That actually made me feel better. Clearly, there’s something in the water saying a change needs to occur.”
When the Barnes Center for Enlisted Education, which oversees the ALS curriculum, later expanded the Operational Concepts from four hours to a full day dedicated to field training exercises across the ALS enterprise, the significance settled in. The change now touches 68 active-duty Airman Leadership Schools and one Air National Guard school.
“Eight whole hours were dedicated to something we helped create,” he said. “I don’t know that it’s really hit me … that all ALSs are affected by this.”
For those who know him, the impact of the change makes sense when they consider the person behind it.
Outside the schoolhouse, Thaxton is the same person he is in uniform — a dad whose oldest daughter says her favorite place in the world is their living room, a husband married to the wing’s director of prevention, and a civil engineer who will show up at your door with a toolbox if something needs fixing.
“I decided a few years back I’m just going to be one person all the time,” he said. “Who I am at home is who I am here. It’s easier that way.”
For Thaxton, the “why” behind all of this is simple and heavy. Combat readiness, he believes, is the truest test of leadership — getting a team to accomplish a mission under stress, over time, with limited resources and almost no direction. In a future high-risk conflict, he knows that foundation will matter.
“Maybe we can build more trust among teams if we expose them to something hard now,” he said, almost to himself. “Maybe we can get some more folks home.”
Out on the ruck route, watching future NCOs stumble, regroup and lead each other through a scenario’s fog, that identity becomes visible — not as a slogan, but as expectation.
No one can promise what the next fight will look like. But Thaxton can insist that when it comes, the Airmen wearing NCO stripes have felt what it’s like to lead when the ground is cold, the radio is loud or completely non-existent, and someone behind them is counting on them to know what to do.
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| Date Taken: | 11.20.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 11.20.2025 13:47 |
| Story ID: | 551927 |
| Location: | SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, ILLINOIS, US |
| Web Views: | 17 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Innovating leadership: How one SNCO’s detour helped transform ALS, by A1C Daisy Quevedo, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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