FORT BENNING, Ga., (Jan. 7, 2015) -- When Maj. Stephen Kaminski received his commission from the South Carolina Air National Guard in 2002, he knew that he wanted to fly. However, a 2010 deployment to Iraq as an F-16 pilot got him thinking about something else: attending Ranger School.
"At that time I wasn't sure how I would go about doing so while trying to maintain my proficiency as a pilot," Kaminski said. "All of my 500-plus combat flight hours in Iraq and Afghanistan have been spent directly supporting troops on the ground, and in the course of doing so, I've worked with a lot of Rangers in the past who have motivated me to want to be like them."
Although he works for Delta Airlines, Kaminski said he has been on a military leave of absence for four years and worked full-time in the South Carolina National Guard and he knew that the summer of 2014 would be his last chance to attend Ranger School.
Kaminski said the reasons he wanted to attend Ranger School were also his biggest challenges.
"I wanted to learn Army ground scheme of maneuver and small unit tactics, each of which I had little to no exposure prior to attending the Warrior Training Center's Ranger Training Assessment Course," he said.
Although RTAC did a great job in preparing him for Ranger School, Kaminski said each day was still spent facing some new situation.
"Since I didn't have any habit patterns or past experience to fallback upon, early in the training, I constantly had to react instead of staying ahead of the game," he said.
Kaminski said he has learned three important lessons by being both a Ranger and an F-16 pilot with the Ranger Creed being at the top of the list.
"The creed is a way of life and it really sets the stage for how one should conduct himself in training and in combat," he said. "Now that I am back to flying F-16s, I still think back to certain stanzas and apply them to my mission sets in the air and on the ground."
The second lesson is that he knows how he will react when the odds are stacked against him, he said.
"When I am truly tired, hungry, cold, I know that I can still rise to a challenge, conduct myself accordingly and get those around me who are experiencing the same challenges, to complete whatever task may be at hand," he said.
The third lesson he learned is about teamwork, which isn't a true lesson since the importance of teamwork gets ingrained early on in military training, he said.
"Ranger School really highlights how one can easily succeed or easily fail if not used to its maximum extent," he said. "We always fly with a wingman, so we never do our job alone and that's because we can't do everything on our own. Like in Ranger School, we rely upon the guy next to us to help complete the mission and if you are not there to help your buddy, then you're doomed to fail."
When Ranger School Class 01-15 graduated, Kaminski conducted a flyover of the ceremony, which was a point of pride, both personally and professionally.
"I had friends that were graduating in class 01-15, so it meant a lot to be a part of their graduation in some capacity," he said. "It was also important for me to have the Air Force represented, to showcase our capabilities to the graduating Soldiers and the guests of the demonstration, and to reiterate that the military is truly a team-oriented organization."
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