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Training equipment review board caring for tasked Airmen

  • Published
  • By Susan Griggs
  • Keesler News editor
KEESLER AFB, Ms. --  Maj. Gen. Mary Kay Hertog, is convinced that consistently bringing the right teams together at the right time will bring the focus needed to take good care of Airmen who receive joint expeditionary taskings to deploy with the Army.

A way to do that is with 2nd AF's training and equipment review board, TERB, which brings together leaders from various organizations and agencies charged with training, equipping and executing deployments for JET Airmen, said the 2nd Air Force commander. 

The TERB met for the fifth time Feb. 22-25 at Keesler with about 70 to 80 Air Force and Army leaders representing personnel, civil engineer, medical, intelligence, security forces, communications and other support fields.

One of 2nd Air Force's key missions is to providing centralized management and the overarching command and control structure to oversee, prepare and equip Airmen for JET expeditionary training in a sister service environment.

General Hertog noted that many people across the Air Force are unaware of the training differences between JET Airmen, and air expeditionary force deployers who undergo combat airman skills training with Air Force instructors.

"JET Airmen are going to work for the Army, deploying on behalf of a combatant commander, so they train at Army power projection platforms," the general explained. "Training is generally longer than what the Air Force does because most of these people will be working 'outside the wire' -- outside the base perimeter.

"Our Airmen are doing an amazing job working for the Army, and we have many people working very hard on their behalf to make sure they're trained and equipped properly and ready to take on their combat mission," she continued. "The process isn't perfect, but we're striving for perfection and every day we're getting a little better at it."

Last year, about 7,000 JET Airmen were trained at Army locations across the country called power projection platforms. The number of PPPs providing training to our Airmen changes but currently there are four PPPs activated -- Fort Bliss, Texas; Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst N.J.; Fort Polk, La.; and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.

"If you're going to be part of a provincial reconstruction team, or a police transition team, or a combat training adviser, you're going to go to combat skills training at one of these PPPs," General Hertog stated.

"Right now we have 1,029 JET Airmen in training," the general said.  "Our numbers really bumped up with the arrival of 563 Red Horse Airmen at Fort Bliss last weekend." Red Horse refers to Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineers, a highly-mobile Air Force engineer response force supporting contingency and special operations around the world.

General Hertog acknowledged that Army training differs from Air Force training in content, culture and delivery, so the TERB tries to bridge the gaps by addressing, identifying, discussing and resolving any deficiencies.

In 2004, increased mission requirements strained the Army's manpower to meet combatant commander needs, so the Army asked for combat support and combat service support personnel from the Air Force and Navy.

In the general's estimation, the most important people in the TERB are the group commanders who attended from the theater, including air expeditionary group commanders from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"They bring something special to the table," General Hertog said. "It's their venue to tell all of the people who support them what they need and where they can use some help."

The emphasis at the TERB shifts as the deployed mission changes.

"At February's TERB, we closed out seven old action items, but we picked up 16 more since the last TERB meeting nine months ago," General Hertog said. "Nine months ago, we weren't in Afghanistan in the numbers we are now. The focus has shifted -- we're drawing down in Iraq and surging up in Afghanistan, so we're shifting our attention."

"Deployment isn't a pickup game for us -- we've been doing this for a long time," she added. "It's all about our Airmen -- our goal is to correct any deficiencies that could keep them from being 100 percent ready to train and deploy. I want to see us making consistent progress."

One area of General Hertog's focus is making sure JET Airmen have the right equipment to take to training and into theater.

Another is making sure that Airmen who've never fired anything but an M-4 Carbine, M-9 Pistol or M-16 Rifle, are given adequate training if they're going to be required to operate crew-served heavy weapons.

Another challenge is ensuring  Airmen are ready to train when they arrive at the PPPs.

"Some may not be mentally prepared, and we've had a few instances where we sent Airmen home who couldn't qualify with weapons, and others arrive with the wrong weapons from their home station. That should never happen," the general said.

When these discrepancies turn up, General Hertog has asked wing commanders for their help in ensuring that actions are taken to prevent those scenarios from reoccurring. She said the feedback she's gotten from those commanders has been overwhelmingly positive.

Another challenge the TERB is addressing is the lack of experienced unit deployment managers and installation deployment officers.

"It's a skill set we need to develop more, instead of making it an additional duty for these folks," General Hertog emphasized. "We have people deploying every day, whether it's JET or AEF -- if we're going to do it right, someone needs to focus full time on the taskings, line remarks, weapons and equipment requirements our deployers need."

General Hertog said the TERB has never had a written charter to outline roles and responsibilities, but a draft document is in the works to specify membership and duties.

"In my mind, the TERB will outlast any specific theater -- we'll always be training and equipping our Airmen to go somewhere," she said. "There's always going to be a Haiti, a Chile, whatever happens in Africa Command as that command becomes more robust. We're going to be an expeditionary Air Force for a long time to come."

The general emphasized the importance of 2nd Air Force's 602nd Training Group (Provisional). In addition to its operations center at Keesler, the 602nd TRG (P) is responsible for detachments at each PPP that function as Air Force liaisons and provide location command and control.

"We have folks from everywhere working in our operations center -- active-duty, Guard, Reserve, comm specialists and loggies, you name it," General Hertog said.

Col. Kevin McGlaughlin, the 602nd TRG (P) commander, spends most of his time on the road traveling to its detachments at the PPPs to make sure everything involved with training is going well and General Hertog and Chief Master Sgt. Linus Jordan, 2nd Air Force command chief, make periodic visits to the detachment commanders.

"We always meet with our Army counterparts to thank them for what they are doing and to give them an opportunity to vet any issues," the general said.

"Our moral obligation is to provide our Airmen with the best training and equipment possible to make them combat ready - the right training at the right place and time," General Hertog said. "We can't fail them. The number of JET Airmen isn't going to go down any time soon, and we need everyone's support to give them the same attention and care that we give our AEF Airmen."