Melissa Sidwell Bowron is an Active Duty Air Force Intelligence Officer and 2010 United States Air Force Academy graduate. Although she grew up as an Army dependent overseas, she now calls Charleston, South Carolina home and is currently stationed in Washington D.C. She has deployed to the Middle East and Europe on numerous occasions in a career spanning from remotely piloted aircraft operations, joint force liaising and special operations intelligence. Her passions include people, travel, reading, international relations, better understanding big data, anthropology and varied management styles, skiing, faith and fitness. She is married to a fellow Air Force Officer James and they have a dog and two cats at home.
A presumed path to valuable accomplishment is upward mobility, but connecting across boundaries is often an under-appreciated way to grow in diplomacy, science, and the military. We too frequently build a web of relationships with people who think, look, and act in similar ways that we do. Comfort is a natural human inclination, but famous stoic Marcus Aurelius warned that the comfort zone will destroy your life. With this mantra in mind, this article examines three vignettes in which incredible and ordinary humans stepped out of line to forge unlikely relationships, often outside their prescribed realm to further their field, sometimes humanity, but always their character and identity.
In the late 2000s, facing mounting Indo-Pacific instability and regional threats, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proposed forming an unlikely “Quad” alliance between India, Japan, Australia, and the United States. Abe rationalized that the Quadrilatic Security Dialogue provided a forum to “defend the international rules-based order.” In spite of initial lukewarm support of the Quad, Abe continued to promote the alliance until nearly a decade later when Japan successfully coordinated a meeting between the leaders of the four nations. Since 2017, the importance of the Quad continues to grow, with its significance codified in the 2022 National Security Strategy of the United States. Sadly, Abe, the visionary, disruptive leader of Japan was assassinated in 2022. His unlikely institution, however, lives on, anchoring Indo-Pacific Maritime freedom and cybersecurity in a diplomatic soft power approach to counter Chinese influence throughout the region.
Aptly named “hidden figures” of science are the hundreds of women who answered the call to serve in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) predecessor as early as 1935 as “human computers.” These “human computers” solved equations and calculations to allow for engineers to focus on other tasks; notably, African American women, or “colored computers,” faced not only gender barriers but also racial resistance. Despite controversial societal norms, numerous women were pivotal in developing human space flight. Of these women, Katherine Johnson, a “colored computer,” stood out for her excellence in assisting mission calculations, garnering an unlikely bid from astronaut John Glenn to personally confirm the calculations for his first orbital mission in 1962. Not only did the successful orbital mission mark “a turning point in the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union in space,” but Johnson proudly demonstrated the value of pursuing an unprescribed path to overcoming barriers for women and African Americans.
Last year, I had the unique opportunity to forge a relationship with a Navy Sailor set to participate in an exercise from her ship while I planned to be landbound. I served as an Air Force liaison to the Army. However, our joint task focused on leveraging the interoperability of all domains. Not explicitly tasked with co-location, we were determined to fulfill our purpose of optimal Air-Maritime interaction, so a trip to sea was in order. We established new data discovery and fusion and joint firing procedures by proposing a never-before embedding of an air intelligence officer paired with her joint terminal attack controller. Our successes offer a step forward in enhancing the preparation of our defense department, but, importantly, grew our confidence to step out of expected norms and seek connection through unique approaches.
Connectivity through unlikely bonds and overcoming barriers are pivotal in advancing your field and character. According to one Air Force commander, barriers to connectivity include inappropriate interactions in the workplace that erode trust, the “lack of flow” in the workplace, an unsatisfactory sense of purpose, and an inward mindset that only focuses on personal goals and objectives. Arguably, Abe, Johnson, and our Air-Maritime team all found appropriate entry nodes to form a new web of relationships, discovered purpose, and identified a call to service for a greater good, no matter how large or small the impact. Hopefully, this article offers encouragement to step out of line in your workplace to fulfill a feat by forging unlikely connections and building confidence through unexpected accomplishments.
*The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the U.S. Air Force or the Department of Defense.
References:
The Comfort Zone with Destroy Your life. https://youtu.be/fQGVPKI-ksM?si=gsyCLjnCOvLL96b8. Accessed 7 March 2024.
Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrilateral_Security_Dialogue Accessed 28 March 2024.
Fraser, Dominique. The Quad: A Backgrounder. Asia Society Policy Institute. https://asiasociety.org/policy-institute/quad-backgrounder. Accessed 28 March 2024.
Biden, Joseph. National Security Strategy. Washington, DC: White House, 2022. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Biden-Harris-Administrations-National-Security-Strategy-10.2022.pdf Pgs 12, 17, 33, 34, 37. Accessed 27 March 2024.
Howell, Elizabeth. The Story of NASA’s Real “Hidden Figures.” 27 January 2017. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-story-of-nasas-real-ldquo-hidden-figures-rdquo/ Accessed 29 March 2024.
Shatterly, Margot Lee. Katherine Johnson Biography. 22 November 2016. https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/langley/katherine-johnson-biography/ Accessed 29 March 2024.
Jones, Carey. Connectedness: Key to organizational success. 11 November 2019. https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2012518/connectedness-key-to-organizational-success/ Accessed 29 March 2024.
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