When two-star Major General Matthew Wolfe Davidson joined the Air Force, he didn’t intend to stay as long as he did.
“My plan was to only do four years. I was really just going to pay back my scholarship and do four years and get out,” he said.
And then he learned about ground special operations and special tactics. Davidson said he was fortunate to get selected for the program and found a family there. He loved it and stayed as long as he could, which ended up being just under 33 years.
Davidson retired officially in August and said a lot of his military experience went back to growing up in Oklahoma.
His father, who was a Marine, raised him feeling as though he had an obligation to serve, even though he never directly told him he had to. So, when it came time for university, Davidson got a scholarship for the Air Force ROTC at Oklahoma State University.
Coming from Chandler (Class of 1989), he said he was friends with just about everyone in his class of around 76. He then found that same sense of community in ROTC and again in special operations.
The Major General said that there aren’t too many things that are as special as that tight-knit special operations community, and in particular Special Tactics. Getting there was difficult. It’s about a year-and-a-half pipeline, but he said you just had to grind and push through. However, the perseverance he needed to get into and through the program was yet another thinghelearnedbygrowing up in Chandler.
“My dad would raise Longhorns there in Oklahoma. And so, what do farmersdo?Whatdoranchers do? What do cowboys do? They just hang on and persevere, and that was the same kind of thing to make it through the pipeline,” he said.
It was likely perseverance that helped him to rise through the ranks. In his nearly 33 years in the Air Force, the Major General had 17 moves, overseas assignments, and demanding 12- to 18-hour days, sometimes working seven days a week. In his final assignment, Davidson commanded the Second Air Force at Keesler Air Force Base, which trained roughly 150,000 Airmen each year through enlisted basic training and technical training programs.
His career often came with making major decisions, something Davidson said you grow into. The experience he had as a young officer helped inform the decisions he made when he was more senior. He added that the toughest decisions weren’t made as the most senior officer, but rather when he was a lieutenant colonel and colonel years ago.
Davidson said that he remembered the first time they lost someone -- he was an operations officer, and they lost two men in the Philippines at the kickoff of Operation Enduring Freedom Philippines right after 9/11. The commander was focused on taking care of the family, but as secondin- charge, Davidson’s job was the mission. “It was a small unit. There’s only about 80 folks, so everybody knew everybody really closely. And we told the unit that we just lost two. I knew what I was watching. I had to pick the two that were going to replace them,” he said.
But while it’s those experiences that stand out, Davidson said that for every one of those, there are many others that were good. It’s the moments where he got to tell someone they were promoted or help them grow that are the most rewarding.
“The ability to impact people and so many more people and to impact their careers and develop them and shape them so they can be successful. So it goes from being fun to being rewarding over time if you do it right,” he said.
Davidson also had the chance to make lasting change through Kessler’s training programs. He said he used what he saw during his career to help improve training and make it better.
“That transformation is going to impact the Air Force for generations,” he said. “The airmen that my son will lead are going to come with a different mentality, a different approach, a more war-fighting-focused, a more enemyfocused, mission-focused approach because of the changes that we instituted there at basic training for the Air Force.”
But for now, Davidson is settling into civilian life. While he doesn’t miss making 15 major decisions before lunch, he does miss the family aspect of the Air Force. However, he’s excited for the next chapter. He and his wife have settled in Florida, while his son is at the Air Force Academy and his daughter is at the University of Tennessee. He said they’re now building their calendar around their family instead of the Air Force.
It’s a little weird, he said, being in one place, but he and his wife are looking forward to regrowing some roots, even though part of him will always be connected to Chandler. His three closest high school friends even showed up at his retirement ceremony in June.
And throughout it all, Davidson said one of the things he’s learned throughout his career is that successful people aren’t born; they’re made.
“They’re made by families and friends and teachers and aunts and uncles and grandparents that raise these kids, you know, into young men and women of this character,” he said. “And so, you know, when people said, ‘Hey, you became a two-star. You were the first two-star from your, from SpecialTactics we’ve ever had in the history of the Air Force… How’d you do it?’ My point is that I was raised to be successful, and I just took advantage of the opportunity.”