Photo By Eric White | Staff Sgt. Danielle Wiesen, a member of the 910th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron and...... read more read more
A growing rumble overlays the chorus of birdsong from the woodline around the Slagle drop zone at Camp James A. Garfield Joint Military Training Center, Ohio. Tall grass and wildflowers, broken by a dusty gravel and dirt road, flow in waves beneath the noonday sun, a bright contrast to the shadow of the thick, dark trees. Hidden in the brush among the onlooking ranks of maples and oaks, more than a hundred U.S. Air Force security forces members (Defenders) wait, silent sentries watching for movement across the field.
The droning crescendos into a roar as a C-130J Super Hercules aircraft appears low above the treetops. Three of the concealed Reserve Airmen are intimately familiar with the engines producing the sound. Their work as aircraft maintainers with the 910th Maintenance Squadron and 910th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron personally contributed to the aircraft’s ability to fly, but apart from the maintenance patch they each wear, they’re indistinguishable from the Defenders on their flanks. They are aligned in the singular purpose of mission execution.
As the C-130J disappears beyond the opposing trees, a large bundle drifts to the ground in its wake. Moments after it lands, a small team of the Defenders emerges from the woodline, bounding toward the package with measured, hyper-vigilant steps, rifles ready. They expect opposition, but trust the Airmen at their six. They’ve spent days crafting a plan and honing skills. It’s time to execute.
Air Force Reserve Command’s Integrated Defense Leadership Course has been running at Youngstown Air Reserve Station, Ohio, and utilizing training grounds at nearby Camp Garfield since 2021. Nearly 1,500 Defenders from across the Reserve have honed their warfighter skills during the intense, hands-on, two-week course facilitated by a cadre of experts selected from among their peers. But for the first time since the course began, the Defenders are joined by wingmen from the 910th’s maintenance squadrons.
Tech. Sgt. Joshua Garlock, Staff Sgt. Taylor Skelley and Staff Sgt. Danielle Wiesen completed the July 14-28 iteration of the course. They worked alongside security forces through a rigorous series of academic and practical training, including live-fire shooting, land navigation, combatives, rifle fighting, area security operations, mission planning, tactical combat casualty care, static defense and more. The course required early mornings, long days, physical fortitude, multiday field exercises and rapid decision-making under high stress.
Despite knowing little about IDLC, Wiesen jumped at the opportunity, saying the emphasis on leadership is why she volunteered.
“I figured that if anything, it was going to make me a better leader in some aspect, and it truly did,” Wiesen said.
A few months prior to the course, Garlock participated as an opposing force member in an exercise. His role was basic, but it inspired him to sign up for IDLC as a means to gain and hone the skills he observed others using while portraying an adversary in the exercise.
“It gave me a lot more appreciation for security forces and what they do and how they have to train and prepare themselves,” said Garlock. “Every job in the Air Force is crucial, but it really puts it into perspective how important security is.”
The maintainers weren’t sure how they’d be received into the course by students and cadre, given that they didn’t come from a security forces background, but their concerns were unfounded. They spoke highly of the cadre and their fellow students, who were both accepting and encouraging from the get-go.
Toward the end of the course, fellow student 1st Lt. Anthony Francia, a member of the 927th Security Forces Squadron at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, selected Wiesen as the Charlie fire team lead.
“It pushed me out of my comfort zone,” Wiesen said. “It wasn’t about my normal wrenching on the airplanes or doing aircraft systems. It was about leading under pressure, making quick and fast, effective decisions and working as a team in the environment we were given. It required grit, courage, honor, pride, self-discipline and a lot of determination. They were long days. Every day was very physically and mentally demanding.”
Garlock recalled awaiting the airdrop at Slagle, feeling spent from the hourslong trek through challenging terrain.
“The airdrop mission was probably the longest, hardest challenge for me,” said Garlock, “just because physically that day, especially with how extremely hot it was, and being in full (security forces) kit, that was a true test of my physical capability.”
The cadre and Garlock’s team leadership pushed him so that he was ready for what was about to happen.
As opposing force members open fire on the position of the maintainers and their wingmen, plumes of green, purple and yellow smoke drift upward around the field against the backdrop of high-pitched whistles followed by echoing booms. As hundreds of blank rounds are expended in the force-on-force exercise environment, the sights and sounds provide a sense of realism intended to make students react under pressure. The students are exhausted, hot, surrounded by chaos and assaulted by intentional stressors. All the while, the watchful eyes of the cadre guide, encourage and sometimes admonish to ensure the students make sound decisions, react accordingly and remember the basics.
There are nearly 40 Air Force career fields available for Reserve Airmen at Youngstown Air Reserve Station. The Defenders and maintainers at the course represent just a few of them, but also illustrate the connectedness and essentiality of every Airman in every field.
Without Wiesen, Skelley and Garlock performing their maintenance functions effectively, the C-130 may not have been able to fly the airdrop mission. Without the members of the 76th Aerial Port Squadron, there would have been no one to palletize the cargo bundles. Without the pilots, the aircraft would never have taken off, and without the loadmasters, the pallet would not have been prepped to parachute down to the ready Defenders. That’s to say nothing of the medical professionals who ensured the operators were cleared to fly, the logistics Airmen who fueled the aircraft or the communications Airmen who provided essential assets for mission planning. The list goes on.
In soliciting squadron volunteers to participate in the course, maintenance leadership leveraged the hidden connectedness of two very different career fields to bring new skills and leadership capability back to the 910th Maintenance Group, amplifying the total force concept.
Chief Master Sgt. Waylon Westbrook is the chief enlisted manager of the 910th Maintenance Squadron. He arranged for his members to participate in IDLC.
“This, in my opinion, was another course to help provide maintenance personnel with a better understanding of how to protect our assets if it were to come to us picking up a weapon and pulling security or setting a perimeter,” said Westbrook. “We don’t perform those tasks as our primary job, but we should be able to communicate and help when needed. This was another step toward the Mission Ready Airmen concept.”
The participants indicate that it has paid off.
“It showed me that when it comes to defending the mission, whatever mission it might be, we’re all in it together,” said Wiesen. “It doesn’t matter the career field. It doesn’t matter what AFSC (Air Force Specialty Code) you hold. You own your career; develop those skills that you have learned. You become better than you were yesterday.”
Wiesen said that toward the end of the course, her peers gave her the best compliment they could give, letting her know that if she was ever interested in cross-training and a new duty location, they’d welcome her into the Defender ranks with open arms. Returning the positive feedback, she said she got to work with some amazing people during the course, established some solid connections and would take the opportunity again in a heartbeat.
In a large organization with many mission sets, it can be easy to lose sight of the importance of individual efforts. Nontraditional training opportunities can help establish a firmer grasp on how each Airman’s contributions help accomplish the mission.
“It really teaches you and shows you the why of what you do, but also the seriousness,” said Garlock. “It really showed me how serious things are and how serious they can get, and I think taking that with me over to maintenance, it just reinforces that attention to detail and taking it even more seriously from the maintenance side. This needs to be squared away and that attention to detail needs to be there.”
After hiking back through miles of thick forest and a short debrief with their squads, Garlock, Wiesen and Skelley ride from Camp Garfield to their home station where they’ll stow equipment, clean up and retire for the evening. The next few days of training don’t let up the pace as they learn about sector defense and run a final full-day exercise. On the last day of the course, they complete a three-mile graduation ruck alongside their fellow students. They may be maintainers out of their element mixed in with Defenders from across the Air Force Reserve, but they ruck as fellow warfighters and graduates of the Integrated Defense Leadership Course.
| Date Taken: | 08.20.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 08.22.2025 07:59 |
| Story ID: | 546067 |
| Location: | OHIO, US |
| Web Views: | 359 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, In it together: Maintainers crank through security forces course, by Eric White, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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