In the world of the U.S. Air Force’s F-35 Lightning II, precision, focus, and attention to detail are imperative to ensuring the safety of the jets, their operators, and the accuracy of the aircraft’s performance. For Senior Airman Analie Choquette, a Traffic Management Operations Specialist with the 158th Fighter Wing, these are not just attributions to the F-35—they serve her during her off-duty time as well.
“Riding takes a lot of attention to detail,” said Choquette, of her horseback riding hobby. “You have to know your surroundings, you have to think ahead, like, ‘what if I do this wrong, what’s going to happen?’”
She is not wrong. According to the Brain Injury Association of Missouri, horse riding accounts for an estimated 710 deaths annually.
Choquette, who has been riding horses for nearly a decade, carries the attention to detail for safety into her military job as well. A TMO specialist is in charge of processing people and parts for various military missions.
“If I mess up a part number or serial number,” said Choquette, “One, it's more paperwork I have to do, and two, if I send something somewhere and they're like, ‘oh well this isn't right’, then it can also impact up the mission.”
Choquette finds that a key to ensuring a successful mission is communication. She said that also applies to a successful ride.
“I can't speak to her,” she said of her horse, Prada, “But we need to find a way of being able to kind of communicate with each other.”
How does she speak to her horse in a way that Prada understands? The same way people communicate with one another without using words—by using body language.
“Horses definitely go off of how you feel,” said Choquette. “So if I'm having a bad day we’re going to have a bad ride. They can feel when you’re tense and stressed.”
That is one more lesson Choquette has learned. If communication does not work, then things do not go, whether that is horses or military equipment.
"TMO is important to the overall mission because we are the ones who get the cargo and people out for deployments and trainings. “Without us we would just be stuck here.” says Choquette. "Things just wouldn’t go without TMO."