Air Force Reserve concludes exercise in Indo-Pacific

HILO, HI, UNITED STATES

10.07.2023

Story by Jessica Kendziorek 

403rd Wing

The 22nd Air Force conducted a two-week long exercise, with more than 15 units participating in this year’s Rally in the Pacific exercise, Sept. 9-23, 2023. The exercise was held in the Indo-Pacific region, primarily Guam, Palau and the Philippines, with the main operating location out of Pohakuloa Training Area, Hawaii.

“This is the fourth in the series of Rally exercises, which have built progressively upon each other,” said Col. Gregory Berry, 934th Airlift Wing deputy commander and RITP23 mission commander. “The intent of this year’s Rally in the Pacific exercise was to deploy a large group of Reservists out to the Pacific, train throughout the region, show our adversary that as a Reserve entity we could operate in their backyard, and then task and exercise the agile support elements.”

To do that, everything started with the planning.

Once firm expectations for the exercise were determined; from the intent to the training, the team had to develop the Deployments Requirements Manning Document, or the list of jobs that were required to make the exercise a success. From there, the team consolidated the list, sent it out across the Air Force Reserve requesting personnel to fill each job.

This was a new experience for Tech. Sgt. Ethan Smith, 403rd Logistics Readiness Squadron logistics management specialist, who took part in planning the exercise. Of the planning efforts, Smith said, “I got called and was asked if I wanted to help be a part a Pacific Air Force focused Rally exercise back in January (2023) and I agreed, so next thing I knew I was on the core planning team as the logistics planner.”

The logistics planners’ job is to manage the deployment, redeployment, and sustainment process.

For this exercise, the logistics planners had to get more than 350 Air Force Reserve members to the downrange location in Hawaii, stage them, coordinate lodging, and coordinate any onward movement. At the end of the exercise, the logistics planners coordinated the redeployment to get the Airmen back home.

Part of this deployment process is to establish the list of personnel needed to make the exercise a success.

“We used the force element building blocks for ‘Establish the Airbase’ as well as ‘Mission Generation Force Element for C-130s’ as a general guideline for what our total manning requirements needed to be,” said Smith. “Utilizing these two Force Elements, we were able to determine who would be the first personnel on ground, starting from day one to start the base build up with the advance team and then it continues from there to who would be the next personnel to arrive in the follow-on days.”

As with any exercise, adjustments were needed based on training and other requirements. One such requirement was location when Typhoon Mawar struck Guam, which caused a major adjustment to the plan.

“Our initial intent was to bed down at the Northwest Field in Guam, but Typhoon Mawar caused so much damage that we had to scramble to find another location,” said Berry. “We basically replanned the entire exercise two and a half months out using the Pohakuloa Training Area after confirming availability, surveying it and working the logistics.”

By using PTA, the exercise personnel faced logistical challenges operating from Hawaii, Palau, the Philippines, and Guam.

Berry said, “It was challenging in that regard, but challenge isn’t a bad thing.”

The camp was built in the mid-50s and some of the buildings haven’t been updated since then, but the exercise planners prepared Reserve members for the conditions.

By going to PTA there were more Multi-Capable Airmen training opportunities; which included the rifle and pistol pop-up ranges; water survival and land navigation training, and the 9-line and hoist training provided by the U.S. Army Charlie Company 3rd Battalion 25th Aviation Regiment aircrew using a HH60-M Black Hawk medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) helicopter. These training opportunities provided are normally only available for security forces, fire fighters and medical personnel, or the survival, evasion, resistance, and escape professionals and aircrew. Many of these opportunities would not have been available by staying in Guam.

“We told them they were going to experience some good training, but it wasn’t going to be comfortable, and everyone embraced it,” said Berry. “The staff was amazing at flexing the plan to the change, to be able to handle the logistical strain of being spread out so far and it worked out as well, if not better for training than the original plan.”

Another challenge fell directly onto the aircraft maintenance section.

This was due to both logistics for aircraft parts and aircraft maintenance issues because of the locations being spread so far apart.

“The parts arriving on the last aircraft is actually preplanned, because we don’t want any aircraft left behind before we even get started,” said Chief Master Sgt. Ronald Clark, 927th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron maintenance squadron superintendent, who was the senior enlisted leader for the A4, Logistics and Engineering section.

“I am so proud of all of the maintainers who worked through this exercise,” said Clark. “They worked 12-hour days and still had smiles on their face when they finished.”

Other experiences included setting up communications, security, flying operations, medical transport training, and even command operations in the four locations.

“This exercise stressed the importance of how agile combat employment shifts the generation of airpower from large, centralized bases to networks of smaller, dispersed locations, or cluster bases to increase survivability,” said Berry.

Since this was not a traditional exercise with broad objectives, the area of responsibility itself provided unique challenges. Teams were put together to operate in multiple locations with varying levels of capacity and support, and then challenged participants’ skills by providing real-world experience with units they do not regularly train with while testing emerging operational concepts.

“We put our Airmen in a stressful situation with this exercise, and the attitudes of the Airmen, top to bottom, were nothing short of amazing,” said Berry. “The days were long and not easy, the staff kept getting up off the mat when something would go wrong. They continually adapted and found new solutions to the problem at hand. The team fought for three straight weeks, and I couldn’t be prouder of them.”

• Date Taken: 10.07.2023
• Date Posted: 10.08.2023 07:58
• Story ID: 455397
• Location: HILO, HI, US