Photo By Kimberly Menzies | JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii-U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Bryan Duncan,...... read more read more
JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii-As part of ensuring mission readiness, Soldiers with the 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command conducted an air and missile defense planning control system (AMDPCS) training exercise, June 13 to 24, 2016, at Joint Base Pearl Harbor- Hickam, Hawaii.
“Our mission during the first week was basically the deployment and the establishment of the AMDPCS, trying to get things up and running,” said Capt. Matthew Romero, the officer-in-charge of the exercise and a current operations officer with the 94th AAMDC. “The second week consisted of the execution of our training objectives and then tear down, followed by recovery.”
The mission was to train and broaden the Soldiers' knowledge base in order to increase overall Army readiness.
“The purpose of this was to exercise the readiness of the unit in order to gain proficiency in our military occupational specialty skills and the combat readiness of the equipment, as well as our wartime functions,” said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Heather Sheltrown, a command and control integrations operator and the 94th AAMDC’s signal operations officer-in-charge for the exercise.
During the exercise, the Soldiers completed various goals or met training objectives to gauge their levels of readiness.
“One of the basic training objectives was establishing the AMDPCS, which sounds simple but is actually really complex,” shared Romero. “There are many different types of AMDPCS configurations, with many moving elements, and part of setting that configuration up isn’t only the structure, but also getting communications [up and running].”
“We ran major communication exercises within our AMDPCS “C” variant to validate our systems, to validate various communication paths that we have,” explains Sheltrown. “We also brought those systems into other tents to show the battle staff they could be using the systems that are inherent in the unit to do battle staff tracking and processes….essentially validating our readiness.”
Even though the Sea Dragons were familiar with the AMDPCS, the exercise still tested their resolve.
“There were many challenges during the exercise such as competing requirements from personnel,” shared Romero. “The majority of the individuals out at the exercise also had jobs they had to do back at the actual headquarters at Hickam so they were continually bouncing back and forth, trying to balance reality and the exercise.”
This style of training is generally conducted at least twice a year. The change to this iteration’s structural configuration, geographical location, and modification of training objectives created a unique training experience for the Soldiers.
“This year we really stepped it up,” said Sheltrown. “We didn’t have any support from the program managers or field service representatives. We did it all organizationally, on our own, which is a big step.
“Our Soldiers put in their own electrical grid, they did their own trouble shooting, on not only electricity but also circuitry, radios and networking. They did it all themselves which is a very big step up from where we started, towards our goals of combat readiness.”
The exercise allowed the Soldiers to increase mission readiness by learning about the jobs of their fellow Sea Dragons and working towards a common goal.
“When I was first told we were going to do a field exercise I totally thought infantry status - build a tent for a month and work on basic Soldier skills,” said Pfc. Philip J. Sechow, a satellite communications operator and maintainer with the 94th AAMDC.
“I was surprised and happy to learn that we were training on technical information. It was a great opportunity to see how each section within the command really works together and to learn from each other. I am glad we plan on doing this training more frequently in the future.”
The AMDPCS facilitates the gathering of various air defense feeds from alternate locations, consolidating the information in a tactical operations center for a commander and his staff to have visual and informational situational awareness in order to facilitate informed operational decisions.
| Date Taken: | 06.29.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 06.30.2016 21:33 |
| Story ID: | 202956 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, HI, US |
| Web Views: | 54 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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