JONT BASE ANDREWS, Md. –
When referencing fundamental standards, Airmen now have a single source: Air Force Instruction 1-1, Air Force Standards.
As one of the capstone acts of his 39-year career, Gen. (Ret.) Norton Schwartz, former Air Force chief of staff, put his signature on the brand new instruction, which communicates in one document the required standards of conduct, performance and discipline expected of every uniformed Airman.
The instruction -- the first and only to be signed and certified by the chief of staff -- was preceded by Air Force Policy Directive 1, Air Force Culture, in which the secretary of the Air Force directed the former chief of staff to develop and execute policy related to standards.
The new instruction is particularly noteworthy not because it offers many new standards, but because it consolidates many of the standards that had been spread among many separate instructions, officials said. In a single document, the instruction conveniently summarizes the expected standards of conduct for uniformed Airmen.
The intention for the instruction is to serve as a compass, providing a convenient overview of standards while directing Airmen to other instructions where more detailed information may be found, officials said.
Having a one-stop shop for standards-related guidelines, while not unprecedented, has long been absent in the Air Force. In fact, the vast majority of the new instruction's initial content and structure were borrowed from the now outdated Air Force Regulation 30-1, Air Force Standards, which was not replaced in the early 1990s when Air Force instructions replaced Air Force regulations.
In December 2011, Schwartz directed the Air Staff to develop the new instruction. Much of the heavy lifting related to coordinating and drafting the instruction was performed by Scott Martin, a legal advisor on Schwartz's senior air staff counsel.
"We needed to capture and consolidate the existing Air Force standards," said Martin, a 23-year veteran who retired as a colonel in 2010.
From cover to cover, the instruction counts 27 pages, broken into three chapters.