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    FSS prepares and supports SED-deployed Airmen during training exercise

    FSS prepares and supports SED-deployed Airmen during training exercise

    Photo By Airman 1st Class Halley Burgess | Airman 1st Class Meghan Gilbert and Airman 1st Class Erik Nash, both 131st Force...... read more read more

    NEVADA, MO, UNITED STATES

    05.26.2016

    Story by Airman Halley Burgess 

    131st Bomb Wing

    131st Force Support Squadron personnel prepared their fellow Citizen-Airmen for a simulated deployment during annual training here.

    FSS out-processed the unit, provided food services and coordinated lodging during a mock state emergency duty deployment exercise at this Missouri National Guard Base near Nevada, Missouri.

    With the assistance of their unit deployment manager, the FSS prepares an individual Guardsman or an entire unit to deploy. The Installation Personnel Readiness team ensures the member meets all of their pre-deployment requirements and out-processes them for their deployment. When the member deploys, FSS provides all measure of reach-back support that the in-place personnel support for contingency operations, or PERSCO team, cannot complete.

    Preparation to support this mock deployment began four months before the unit deployed. On average, it takes six months to prepare one person for a standard deployment, and a year to prepare an entire unit en masse. FSS has known about this month's mock SED, and has been making preparations, for
    over a year and a half, and has already started planning for next summer's training deployment.

    "I believe this training went very well," said Master Sgt. Blake Enneking, Military Personnel Section superintendent. "This is the first time we had a functioning JOC (Joint Operations Center) in the Camp Clark AOR (area of responsibility), to help troop commanders better understand the importance of strength accountability. The members that worked in the JOC and the troop commanders rose to the occasion and worked very well together."

    The Citizen-Airmen working in food services set up and utilized a single-pallet expeditionary kitchen, or SPEK, for one day each week of the two-week event. During a typical deployment, a SPEK would be used more frequently and requires two hours to fully set up. In the dining facility, Services operated two shifts that lasted roughly six to seven hours in which the members made food preparations for the following shift, and also prepared and served that shift's meal.

    Airmen 1st Class Meghan Gilbert, a services technician within the 131st FSS, worked to prepare food as well as assist with lodging preparations for Camp Clark. Gilbert mentioned that the team she was with experienced only minor equipment setbacks that were typical of new equipment, and was not hindered by it.

    "The SPEK is brand new," Gilbert said. "So, we had to stretch it out a little bit. The only thing that didn't really work was a burner inside of the SPEK, so we transported food from the DFAC. Besides that, everything went really smooth."

    According to Lt. Col. Catherine Sheskey, 131st FSS commander, other FSS functions typically required to deploy troops include fitness, recreation and morale services. She said she hopes to further replicate real-world deployment environments, where FSS members can execute all of its capabilities.

    Her team assisted the deployment process at home station and on arrival at Camp Clark. Sheskey was excited to provide an opportunity for her Airmen to exercise the skills and duties that are connected with deployments.

    "Home-station training is great, but nothing beats the real-world execution of taskers that commanders and troops expect and need while in a deployed environment," said Sheskey. "We were glad that our squadron, especially our newer Airmen, got some real-world opportunities to execute the mission before we actually do get deployed ourselves."

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    NEWS INFO

    Date Taken: 05.26.2016
    Date Posted: 05.26.2016 14:26
    Story ID: 199185
    Location: NEVADA, MO, US

    Web Views: 83
    Downloads: 1

    PUBLIC DOMAIN