An official website of the United States government
Here's how you know
A .mil website belongs to an official U.S. Department of Defense organization in the United States.
A lock (lock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .mil website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Keesler mobile training team deploys to Kuwait

  • Published
  • By 81st Training Group Public Affairs
KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. (AETCNS) --  Master Sgt. Steve Foley and Staff Sgt. Mike Harvell aren’t packing light for a six-week trip to Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. The six equipment cases they need to take training to the warfighters weigh in at more than 1,400 pounds.

Sergeants Foley and Harvell are members of one of the 333rd Training Squadron’s mobile training teams that take diverse global command and control system technical training to locations around the globe.

The trainers leave for Kuwait Aug. 21 and return Oct. 8.

Recently, 333rd TRS teams have traveled to Peterson Air Force Base, Colo.; MacDill AFB, Fla.; Ramstein Air Base, Germany; Yokota AB, Japan; London, and Northbay, Canada; but Sergeant Foley believes that it’s the first time the team has deployed to Southwest Asia.

Training is the key to integrating any command and control system into the combat environment, according to squadron officials.

GCCS-Joint is the nation’s premier system for the command and control of joint and coalition forces. It incorporates the force planning and readiness assessment applications required by battlefield commanders to effectively plan and execute military operations worldwide.

The common operational picture correlates and fuses data to give warfighters vital, real-time situational awareness of the battle space, enabling them to make well-informed life-and-death decisions.

The 333rd TRS GCCS instructors are at the heart of providing essential and diverse technical training. The trainers teach a suite of eight courses, five that can be taken on the road, ranging from Oracle database administration to advanced security management.

The squadron’s one- and two-member mobile training teams use three different hardware configurations to support classes of up to 10 students.

Sergeant Foley, an instructor supervisor, said the training kits include nine servers, 10 laptop computers, cables, routers, switches and hubs.

In Kuwait, the GCCS team teaches two courses and conducts a site visit which will provide exposure to real-time battle field operations that will translate to enhanced course curriculum.

The GCCS operations center in Kuwait supports the Southwest Asia area of responsibility Coalition Forces Land Component Command.

“We do a lot of hands-on, one-on-one instruction,” Sergeant Foley said.

“Our mobile training capability provides opportunities that other courses don’t,” said Morris Kisling, GCCS-J advanced instructor. “We’re able to keep our finger on the pulse of the real-world mission by being exposed to the frontline system administrators on a routine basis. That interaction eliminates discrepancies between the real world and the training environment that on-base courses can’t match.”