AETC leaders visit Keesler Published Feb. 16, 2011 By Senior Airman Eric Summers Jr. 81st Training Wing Public Affairs KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- Gen. Edward Rice Jr., commander of the Air Education and Training Command, visited Keesler Feb. 7-8. Accompanied by Chief Master Sgt. James Cody, AETC's command chief, the leadership team became better acquainted with the 81st Training Wing and 2nd Air Force training missions, toured facilities and met with students, permanent party enlisted members and officers and base leaders. "This base may be small in square footage, but what you accomplish here is a lot," the general said during a commander's call Feb. 7. "What we do in AETC forms the very foundation for everything else that happens in our Air Force," General Rice continued. "If we don't get this right, everything that goes on downstream from here is more difficult, if not impossible. What we do here and what you do here matters to the future of our Air Force, so I pay attention to it. "The good news is that I am very pleased with what I have seen so far," the general added. "I think we're doing as well can be done in terms of delivering Airmen who are ready to meet the broad missions throughout our Air Force. We are doing that not only because we have the right people involved, but because those people are exerting leadership at every level. Our success is much more a function of what you all do than what I do." AETC's commander stressed that Air Force leaders can help provide guidance and direction, "but at the end of the day, the innovation that's going to take us into the future is not going to come from us -- it's going to come from you. I saw several examples of that today from people who are involved in training or involved in activities that have come up with new and better ways to do our mission. "We have many more successes than problems because of you and what you do. We continue to be the most powerful, most envied, strongest, most professional Air Force in the world," General Rice said. "For me this is like coming back home," Chief Cody told Team Keesler members at the commander's call. "It has been my honor to serve in this Air Force for 26 years and it really did start here. I came in an open general type of guy and they sent me here and said I was going to do air traffic control. It was the people that trained me here at Keesler that set me up for my entire career. "They taught me the things I needed to know -- they built on the things I learned in basic, but moreover, they gave me purpose," the chief pointed out. "It really was the men and women just like you sitting in the audience that had an impact on my career." Teresa Rice and Athena Cody accompanied their husbands on the visit to Keesler. In addition to touring student and permanent party dorms and several training venues with their husbands, Mrs. Rice and Mrs. Cody visited the airman and family readiness center, youth center, child development center, Fisher House and met with key spouses and the board of directors of the Keesler Spouses Club.