Photo By Maj. Nadine Wiley De Moura | U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Brent Poff of the 688th Cyberspace Wing A2/3 retired in a...... read more read more
SAN ANTONIO–U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Brent Poff of the 688th Cyberspace Wing A2/3 retired in a ceremony after 23 years of service Jan. 6, 2022 at Joint Base San Antonio–Lackland,Texas.
Col. Kevin Kirsch, Cyberspace Capabilities Center commander and former 690th Cyberspace Wing Commander presided over the ceremony and narrated the biography of Poff’s 23-year journey of service.
“Today is not a eulogy or a traditional send off to friends and family…today we are going to be honoring a hero's journey,” said Kirsch.
Kirsch proceeded to share Poff’s heroic journey of service detailing the outset, initiation of the quest and hero’s return home.
“This next chapter is going to be pretty amazing, it doesn't have to be back to Little Rock, Arkansas–it is wherever the family wants to go,” said Kirsch.
“Having completed the hero's quest and learning to thrive in both worlds –your journey is still continuing and I'm so excited to see you take it to wherever you want.”
Poff, who enlisted Jan. 6, 1999, has already begun his journey into retirement caring for rescued pets with his family and tomatoes in his garden.
“I am not going to miss uniform changes and worry about buying a new uniform,” jokes Poff. “ I wore, BDUS, ABUS and OCPS and all of the PT gear.”
However full of humor and optimism, Poff has seen multiple conflicts during his time of service.
In August of 2001, Poff embarked on his first deployment to Italy, in support of NATO, a few weeks before the towers fell.
“Two weeks into it the tower fell making it a very unique and interesting tour working for NATO during a time like that,” said Poff. “Being overseas with the impacts and threat conditions increasing. You go from one day wearing the uniform to the next searching under your car because you don’t know what type of threat there is to Americans.”
Poff also deployed in support of a Defense Intelligence Agency mission to Afghanistan in 2013 and deployed in support of United States European Command and National Security missions.
“As I was reading through his Enlisted Performance Reports I noticed something was a little different when he got to the NSA,” said Kirsch. “The first few years of his career there was a lot of exquisite detail about the things that he was doing. By the time he got to the NSA the statements were very true but much more generic phrases that didn't go into a lot of specifics.”
It was very classified and serious what he was doing to help the U.S. in it’s war on terrorism, added Kirsch.
“In 2011, the things he was doing [with the NSA] was providing direct support to help our people and minimize the threats against the U.S. and provide real time intelligence based support to them,” said Kirsch. “It really speaks to the tests that a hero goes through alongside allies, there are some enemies out there as well and he did what he needed to do to help take that fight against them.”
True to the hero’s journey, Kirsch laid out, Poff said that the most rewarding part of his career was helping his allies.
“The most rewarding things in my career would be helping others succeed and watching my peers and Airmen who worked with me advance in their career,” said Poff.
“Promotions, commissions, awards or even their transition out of the service– helping people grow and achieve what is possible is one of my biggest highlights.”
Many people I supervise now thank me or that I used to supervise now salute me and I’m pretty proud of that, added the cyber systems operator.
During his last two years of service in the 690th Cyberspace Operations Group and 688th Cyberspace Wing A 2/3 Pff served as the Chief of standardization and evaluations and worked in the commander’s action group.
“March of 2020 when COVID turned the world upside down we had one weekend to come up with a plan to transform the way the Air Force was going to present its networks to 500,000 Airmen and two to three weeks to execute it,” said Kirsch.
“ It took the selfless efforts of folks like Master Sgt. Poff to see what it was that the field needed and taking care of his Airmen during those long hours to make all of that reality.”
During that time I got to watch how the Air Force has evolved its remote capabilities that we didn’t know we had, said Poff.
“The 690th COG was one of the driving forces of expanding the VPN capabilities of the Air force,” said Poff.
“Before we had 16,000 remote login certificates and all of the sudden we went from half a million to 850,000. Watching us adjust to the pandemic is something I never fathomed the military could do. It’s been pretty awesome when you step and look at what the Air Force and Air Forces Cyber has done.”
Kirsch presented Poff a meritorious service medal during the retirement ceremony for his achievements and contributions to the U.S. Air Force and the United States.
“Thank you for your dedication to the mission and bringing joy to the office,” said the 690th Cyberspace Operations Group Airmen on a sword plaque gifted to Poff. “You left your mark on the Group and always took care of us. Best of luck in the next chapter.”
Born in Little Rock, Arkansas to an Air Force father, Poff names his father as the one who inspired him to serve.
“My father raised me and my brother talking about giving back to our country and finding some way to give of yourself in the community,” said Poff. “If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have joined the Air Force.”
Poff arranged a seat with his late father’s uniform blouse, decorations and photo at the ceremony to pay homage to his father.
Also in attendance were Poff’s wife and four children.
“It’s been a partnership, to say she was a supporting factor is an understatement,” Poff said. “There have been some trying times where she has been the rock when I had to take care of work and she lifted me up.”
Poff described that while there are rewarding times, at times suicides hit close to home and the sacrafices required during service often weighed heavy.
“For everyone you have to decide what is important to you and balance your life in a way that compliments that,” said Poff.
“We as a society have put a lot of measurements for success with diplomas and numbers in your bank account.”
I learned success is you really being happy in your own way and measure—you just have to figure that out and go from there, said Poff.
“The best part of the Air Force isn’t the evals, ribbon racks, accolades,” said Poff. “The best part is the people that you’ve met along the way and the people that you get to call family now.”
| Date Taken: | 01.18.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 01.18.2022 13:34 |
| Story ID: | 413011 |
| Location: | SAN ANTONIO , TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 520 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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