By Ray Bowden, April 9, 2018

U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. — Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers told senior cadets at the Air Force Academy to expect challenges after graduating in May.

“If you plotted your ups and downs here at the Academy, it would look like you were having a heart attack,” he said.

Myers, a retired four-star general and the 15th JCS chairman, was the featured guest at the Academy and the U.S. Air Force Academy Endowment’s Character and Leadership Awards ceremony, April 5. He was nominated to receive the Character and Leadership award by a Center for Character and Leadership Development panel and approved for the award by Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Jay Silveria.

“I’m surprised to be the recipient,” he said during the award ceremony in Arnold Hall.

With the award came a $100,000 check from  The Anschutz Foundation that sponsors the award, which Myer’s donated to the Endowment.

Myers encouraged the senior cadets in the audience to approach their military careers with open minds.

“You don’t know where you’re going to serve or how you’re going to serve, but it’s going to take all you have,” he said.

The former chairman petitioned the senior cadets, scheduled to receive their commissions May 23, to remain ethical.

“Sometimes the ends you want to get to are really noble, but you’ve got to evaluate the means by which you get there,” he said. “Step back and ask yourselves, ‘am I doing the right thing?”’

Myers expressed his surprise at the turns and twists of his own career. He received his commission in 1965 through ROTC at Kansas State University and graduated second in his pilot training class. Myers was ready for a leadership role, he said, so he was a bit surprised when he reported to his first base only to be told he’d be in charge of the squadron snack bar.

“I thought ‘What? I’m the ‘Snack-O?”’ he laughed. “Okay.”

Myers said there is not a position that’s too subservient for officers.

“There is no job beneath you,” he said.