Photo By Staff Sgt. Noah Carlson | A C-5 Galaxy prepares to land at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, Aug. 8, 2025. The C-5...... read more read more
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Airmen from the 155th Civil Engineer Squadron participated in the Silver Flag training exercise at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, from Aug. 3-8, 2025, where they improved upon job specific skills and worked together in unison with active duty counterparts from across all the major commands of the Air Force.
“The Air Force and really the military at large is pivoting into major combat operations coming off of counter insurgency type of operations,” said Lt. Col. Ryan Watson, commander of the 155th CES.
Silver Flag serves as an opportunity for Airmen to refine their technical expertise and operational readiness, ensuring they are prepared to meet the demands of tomorrow.
“A resurgence into thinking about how we operate in a contingency environment or contested environment has been put front and center,” Watson said. “I think pivoting back to our core skillsets that enable us to build airfields anywhere in the world rapidly within 72 hours has become front and center.”
Maj. Adam McIntyre, deputy base engineer of the 155th Civil Engineer Squadron and camp commander for the Silver Flag training exercise, further emphasized the importance of Silver Flag.
“The Silver Flag exercise gives our Airmen a chance to really employ all of the wartime tasks that they’re expected to do as civil engineering Airmen," McIntyre said. “Our main job is to construct an airbase from essentially just a runway and a source of water, so we take that and build a complete operating airbase in a pretty rapid manner.”
In addition to the training provided over the course of the exercise, Silver Flag also allowed for the Total Force, Nebraska Guardsman and active counterparts alike, to learn new skills and work together as a unified force.
“The total force integration here gives us that chance to work with the other components of the Air Force. We’re all wearing the same uniform; we’re all wearing the same color as it were, so with that there is no difference between a Guardsman and an active duty Airman here,” McIntyre said. “The other piece is we are a very small community when it comes to the Air Force so this gives us that chance to build some bonds before we go down range in harm's way and really know each other.”
Silver Flag not only offered the opportunity for Nebraska Guardsmen and active counterparts to work together in unison, but also offered the chance for the members of the 155th Civil Engineering Squadron to expand upon their job specific skills and become more familiar with working together in support of larger combat and contingency operations in a simulated deployed environment.
“Each of our [Air Force Specialty Codes] that have come here – which is across 13 different AFSCs – all have some aspect of enabling combat operations at an airfield,” Watson said. “All have significant parts to play when we are talking about base recovery after attack, airfield damage repair, or other contingency operations, it’s really the team that brings that together under a command and control umbrella.”
Watson further expressed how the capabilities of Civil Engineer Airmen may come as a surprise to some individuals.
“I think most people are shocked that we can open an entire airfield from just a stretch of pavement and a source of water to a fully functional airfield within 72 hours of notification,” Watson said. “The fact that we can do that from Lincoln, Nebraska to anywhere in the world is quite frankly astounding.”
| Date Taken: | 09.05.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 09.07.2025 15:02 |
| Story ID: | 547440 |
| Location: | RAMSTEIN-MIESENBACH, RHEINLAND-PFALZ, DE |
| Web Views: | 77 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, From Pavement to Airfield: Nebraska Guardsmen Excel at Silver Flag, by SSgt Noah Carlson, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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