00:00:05,650 --> 00:00:07,428 The Air Force has announced the creation of a new Information Operations , technical training school . Air Force , basic military training has an updated curriculum with a new focus on readiness and lethality . The first command , the Air Force starts here . Hey , hey , everybody , welcome in to the air four stars here and thanks for the subscribe , stream or download . However , you might be listening in if you get a chance to throw us a five star review , we certainly would appreciate that as well . My name is Dan Hawkins from the Air Education and Training Command Public Affairs Team and your host for this professional development podcast dedicated to bringing Total Force big . A airmen insight , tips , tricks and lessons learned from the recruiting training and education world . Today , we are locked in on ready airmen training more commonly referred to as rat part of the US Air Force wide efforts to develop airmen by increasing the knowledge , skills and abilities required of an airman to survive , operate and succeed across the full range of military operations while reinforcing a strong warrior ethos . Rat also replaces the legacy expeditionary or what we used to call just in time deployment training . Concept to create a more lethal and resilient force while also increasing that retention of training . It's not really a big secret . Why we need rat the national security strategy clearly states that the People's Republic of China is the greatest geopolitical challenge we face . And as a key element of defending the nation Secretary Kindle has directed the D through the national defense strategy to prioritize China as our number one pacing challenge and develop the right operational concepts , capabilities and plans to bolster deterrence and maintain our competitive advantage . Joined on the pod today by Colonel Rick K goes by the call sign Toto . He's the deputy commander at the 3 75th Air Mobility Wing out at Scott Air Force Base , also joined by Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan mcgill , call sign Foer . He oversees the portfolio as part of his duties as the Mobility Air Force division chief at the Pentagon in half a three as well as Bob Remy , chief of the training branch here at headquarters A etc whose team has developed ra training for the enterprise . This trio is gonna talk about a ton of stuff today . They're gonna go into the strategic why behind rats , how it works in concert with the five drivers of change . Specifically the Air Force Force generation presentation model commonly referred to as agen and agile combat employment , some of the specifics inside the ready training areas and a look behind how wings and madge coms should consider implementation of RT . They'll also discuss how rat ties into the current look at re optimization for great power competition , as well as the need for feedback from the field on how to improve rat as well . So let's get to it . Episode 67 of the Air Force starts here . Launches right now , Colonel Ken . Can you tell us a little bit about yourself coming from Scott Air Force Base right now ? I am the deputy commander for the 3 75th Air Mobility Wing . I've been charged by our wing commander to kind of get after this uh you know , ready airmen training program for our airmen as uh we are identified as a lead wing for uh 25.1 and we just hit our hit our prepare phase . And then prior to this , I was at the headquarters A MC for a year as the Deputy Chief of staff . And then prior to that , uh I was at uh headquarters Air Force and I was the expeditionary uh training manager and can ran the portfolio for expeditionary readiness , ok . And also with us today . Uh Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan mcgill . How are you this morning , sir ? Hey , good morning . Uh great to be here today . Um So I am the Mobility Air Forces Division Chief in Air Force Headquarters A three TM I have uh in , in our portfolio . We have the Ready Airman training program and I've now been here in a three tm uh working the Ready Airmen training program for about uh 2.5 years . Uh and , and kind of have the op has had the opportunity to see it mature and grow over that time . Uh And really excited to talk about it today and how we've uh gotten to where we are today and , and our proposed way forward lastly with us on the podcast , Bob Rey , how are you , Bob ? Hey , good morning Dan . Uh great to be here . Thanks um for putting this together . Um So I am the Ready Airman training branch chief here at a etc uh I worked almost directly for or with Colonel mcgill uh as the uh rat council secretariat . Um Colonel mcgill basically provides the guidance and then we go out there and try and take his vision and update the ready airmen training program based on the needs of the air force to really meet the needs of the airmen going out there for this new or higher end fight that we're trying to uh to work around . So , but yeah , my team , we're the ones that work the uh the ready training areas , update them , refine them based on the feedback we receive from the from the match coms and the wings . Colonel mcgill . Let me , let me , I guess just start with you . Let's talk about ready airman training at maybe its most basic level . What is it and why do we need it ? Well , first I got to say that , I think Mr Remy gives me a little too much credit there . Um It's hardly just my vision . Uh It's definitely our senior leaders vision that they passed down to uh my division . And then we meet with the rat council which is comprised of members from each match com and several other organizations that have uh input to the overall rat program . The RAT C meets traditionally twice a year and we take those inputs and then push them out to the field . The reason that we actually transitioned to ready airman training from the previous model of expeditionary readiness is , is due to senior leaders asking the question , are we ready to compete with a near peer competitor ? And that's that , that's really what guides us in the Ready Airman Training Council and why we transition from the just in time deploy pre deployment model of training where you would just go right before you got tied for a deployment . Uh You'd knock out all your training and then you would go overseas . What we realized is we're operating in environments that's , that are much more complex overall than they have been in previous generations . And we need to make sure that airmen are ready throughout the entire agen cycle , not just right before they go somewhere to deploy . Um And that's really been the guidance that we , we rolled out on uh almost three years ago now . Um And we're looking at trying to make continue to try to make airmen more lethal , more resilient and more survivable . And Colonel Ki , I kind of wanna just tug on the string of , of the why and the strategic imperative to why our airmen need to be ready for future conflict . Well , I think it came down to it is the air force changed the way we deploy airmen into this new aw gen concept . And by doing that , we had to re look at how we train our airmen . As Colonel mcgill said , you would wait under the uh the old expeditionary readiness model . You would wait until you were tasked to deploy uh somewhere worldwide . And that is when you would initiate your training with your UDM . Uh And that is not how we want to train our airmen . Now , for this high end fight , uh we need airmen that are uh that have multiple touch points across , you know , three of the four phases . So when they do deploy , they're at a much higher level and you know , from the wing level , our goal I would say is to ensure that our airmen are fully trained and prepared for deployed operations to the location that they're assigned to go to uh prior prior to entering that available to commit phase . It's tailoring training over that 18 months for our airmen instead of just waiting until they're tasked and doing it very last minute and then they hop on an airplane and go definitely a real shift from those traditional large force packages that we've seen deployed in , in the past . How important from a commander's perspective , obviously , you were the deputy commander at your wing . But how important from a command perspective is it to really dive into this Avin and , and Ace construct and way of thinking of deployments and then how you tie in ready airman training ? I know that's a challenge . Right , sir . Uh It's a big challenge , right ? Because we have airmen deploying or available to commit every six months . And so every six months , we are training airmen uh in their reset bin , in their prepared bin and in their ready bin and then we have airmen deploying . And so that's a challenge to continuous continuously , ensure that our airmen are , are properly trained to go to the location once again that they've been identified , you know , and the biggest is during expeditionary readiness training , de deployed ops training really wasn't a priority for leadership and under the Ready Airman training program under this umbrella leadership at the wing and even at the match common level have to make this uh a true priority , right ? Because that just in time training , it really made us lazy over the last 20 years , right ? And so we got to stop thinking that and actually change our mindset to this is a continuous process uh to ensure that our airmen are ready win test . I definitely also , I think when I looked at Ready Airman training as a whole . Maybe Colonel mcgill might be the right guy to tie in , but it's also can help you at home station as well . So Colonel Kent is absolutely right here . And it's one of the things that we've uh honestly uh is a challenge for the Ready Airman Training Council right now is integrating the 12 Ready training areas into a more higher fidelity level of training . It is dependent on wing level leadership , squadron level leadership , whatever level unit leadership um to , to really ensure that their airmen are getting the the correct training and the correct quantity of training . But to do that these training events need to be integrated into uh wing level exercises where you can go out and practice multiple different events at the same time to prepare you for what you're actually going to see in a contingency location . Um And that's where I think the Rat Council and Headquarters Air Force can provide a little more guidance and a little more assistance to wings to ensure that we have a goalpost that they can look at and say , ok , this is the ultimate goal and this is how we can get there . And these are some tools that we can use to ensure that we have integrated training across our wing to to meet this overall goal . The big picture quite honestly is to increase the use of technology , we want to increase , increase the use of wing or higher uh level exercises and we wanna increase airmen's buy in overall . There's gotta be a reason that airmen want to do this training and to do that , we can't just rely on legacy C BT S where airmen click through and get kind of relatively low fidelity training when there's so much more capability out there that we could be tapping into . In the simplest of terms , the reason why ready airmen training exists and the ready training areas is really to prevent that atrophy of those critical hands on skills that all airmen need for that high end fight by doing it a continuous cycle . You remember it a lot easier when it , it becomes maybe a more critical situation that it's not something it's become second nature , but that's what trying to get this out there and have folks understand that this is a critical thing to do to prevent that atrophy . Bob . Let me stick with you because I know this was a , a really massive effort by the team here at Air Education and training command . Can you kind of talk to the the staff's work that's went into this and some of the areas that you guys have been focused on as you tried to really bring this idea to reality . Basically , the team took the a lot of the old expeditionary skills training that used to that existed and kind of created and refined it into the the ready training areas that fall under the ready airmen training program . So these RT A s are spread out over the reset , prepare and certify phases of the agen cycle . But the team has had to go out there and work with those subject matter experts to kind of refine this training down to the critical aspects that are needed for , for the airmen . And it's a continuous process . It's not something that , that just happens immediately and we're one and done it is we're getting feedback all the time from airmen that are in these RTA um to go in , refine them , change them , update them , uh maybe put tests in there . So see what's kind of how they're proceeding through the courses , uh update courses , um take some courses that folks don't really need . Like if you're a pilot , uh you know how to talk on a radio , maybe you don't need really need basic communications . Uh RT A maybe you don't need to really go do that , but it's a heavy lift and it's a continuous effort . The team is always looking at refining the RT A S and then basically the biggest push we got right now is trying to build some sort of resiliency aspect into these ready training areas . Something that happens post bang , we need the airman to be able to get up and continue the fight . So we're really focused on that area right now and how to build resiliency into those current RT areas that we are , are managing the 12 Colonel mcgill . I'm curious , uh how rat requirements for individual airmen are actually defined or codified ? Knowing that this is a tailor type of training . Initially , we wanted to raise the baseline of training for every airman in the air force . We boiled it down to the 12 ready training areas under each of those 12 ready training areas . There's multiple different training events that are listed on mylearning . Some of those are in person . Some of those are uh creditable with an exercise or uh potentially just as part of your normal uh a FSC driven job . Um And some of them are right now C BT and kind of legacy training uh mediums . Um but all of those are listed on mylearning and it's easy for airman to go in , see what training is available . Some of it's optional , some of it's mandatory . Um and then work with their UD MS to uh to ensure that they're meeting the requirements of the ready training areas depending on which category they fall into . Now , I'll touch a little bit on categories because this can be confusing for some people . Inexperienced airmen probably need higher levels of training than more experienced airmen or folks that are on staff that aren't going to deploy . So we broke it down into three levels . Level . One is your your staff or non deploy entities and then there's two other levels for experienced and inexperienced , obviously experienced members of the Air Force , once you go through two agen cycles , it's what it's currently defined as requires significantly less recurring training , recurring touch points , um as inexperienced airmen . So it is all tailor and it really goes back to ensuring that , you know , commanders understand what the intent of the program is . That it's throughout the entire African cycle that it's to get people ready whether they're deploying or not quite honestly because you don't , you never know when a contingency situation is going to occur . It could happen on your way home here in the US as well , making sure that they're ready for , for whatever situation they're , they're going to face . And Colonel Kent , I wanted to kind of bring you in on this one just , you know , in your command role currently , how important is that uh the ability to be flexible ? So airmen feel like they're getting the best training and not necessarily training they don't need uh for a potential deployment . Yeah , flexibility is the key to air power . We've heard that for the last 20 years , right ? Um And it rings true with this , you know , across every wing , you're gonna have airmen in each of those categories . So you're gonna have experienced airmen , you're gonna have inexperienced airmen . Uh and then those kind of at the staff level . And so at the wing level , the most important thing is having a plan in place on how that you're gonna execute when you look at ready training , uh airmen , uh you know , this program , it's a lot to take it and trying to change our mindset from expeditionary readiness . And so you really got to break it down at our wing . What we're trying to do and we're at the early stages is we're trying to assign what squadron commanders are responsible for what group commanders and what the wing is responsible for and then what are external agencies like the expeditionary uh center , uh what they're responsible for and then we can break it down by phase . And some examples would be so when you're in the reset phase , when you enter it , you're gonna um accomplish certain rat events , but those are gonna be things like C BT S , right , kind of at the very basic level and then a lot of on the job training requirements , right ? Because you're coming back from that deployment , you're taking some time off and I'm starting kind of that bare , you know , minimum , you know , low level 100 level courses as I start entering my prepare phase . That's when , you know , at the wing , we're starting to do wing training uh events , you know , starting to do that a staff training if necessary . And we're tasked to do so MC A and ace , depending on where we're going and where our airmen are tasked , right ? Um We're gonna do things like se burn comprehensive airmen , fitness and lava war , small arms , right . And then all of that bringing in local exercises kind of building upon all those C BT s from that reset bin into that prepare bin . Now we enter that ready bin and we're looking at accomplishing kind of that three and 400 level courses , right . Accomplishing rat training here at the 3 75th , we have what's called a war course where we actually , uh , it's a week long course . We're looking at potentially extending it to two weeks where we're getting after these uh rat events that , you know , squatter commanders just can't do by themselves . But we at the wing have the resources that we can put on a course where we can get after things like active threat response . Basic com se burn , uh some of that law of war small arms , we're integrating a lot of the uh resiliency in our work course and we're working with all the different agencies on base and uh the , you know , the chaplains and bringing all that in . So at the end of that , right , they have that kind of 300 level training to most , not all , but most of these rat events then depending on the a or that our airmen are going to , they're gonna do some uh extra training , right ? I talked about uh you know , potential a staff , there's some leadership training down at Herbert uh field depending on what you're gonna do , but there's also your certification event . Um And then that's gonna be the big one . And so we want to ensure our airmen are fully trained , ready to go prior to that certification event . And so then after that certification event , we're just cleaning up normal deployment items and , and scrubbing folders giving time back to them and their families , uh , and their units so that when they hit their , um , you know , available to commit bin , they are available to commit . Right ? And you brought up a good point , all airmen need to be ready to deploy and they're available to commit . We have some of our airmen that are tasked to deploy , right ? That they are most likely gonna be our priority when it comes to training . However , if you are postured , you still have the abi uh ability to get tagged and you are available to be committed and therefore you just like those that are uh that are tasked to deploy uh need to be fully trained . Yeah , that , that's all great stuff . And Colonel mcgill , uh I wanted to kind of go back to you like , you know , from uh a tracking and how uh you know , installation deployment officers and , and unit deployment managers , you know , how is this tracked and then fed into the , to the readiness machine ? Well , right now , everything is tracked through my learning and a ATC definitely helps us out a lot on that . Um Mr Remy and his team uh are , are they probably look at my learning 27 times a day , if not more , making sure that everything is solid in there so that airman can understand what their uh training options are . And then UD MS can understand how to track that . We've had several engagements with UD MS directly online via teams via a different uh different forums to answer their questions and ensure they understand what their requirements are to track each of their unit uh members and ensure that everyone is prepared to deploy . Um We're , we're making a lot of progress on the uh UDM front . And uh for the most part , the questions have uh you know , with they were , when we first rolled this out , we were getting a lot of questions . Now , everyone's getting more familiar with the program . We're getting less questions and understand the overall um goals of the program . I will highlight . So right now on the staff uh Secretary of the Air Force , uh Secretary Kendall directed the entire staff to uh conduct a re optimization review focused on readiness . And since you mentioned readiness , I think that's important because when we talk about training , we're really talking about training to be ready for something , right ? And in this case , it's ready for great power competition or great power conflict . Um Secretary Kendall has directed the staff to , to do a comprehensive review on all of this and ready airmen training is the foundation that is going towards that readiness . It's the first step where all individual airmen , once they complete their accession training , whether that's basic training or OTs or wherever they're coming from . Ready arm and training is literally the first touch points that they're gonna have in the Air Force on how to start for a contingency environment . Um So as Secretary Kendall said , I'm reading a quote from an article that was published today in Air and Force Spaces magazine . It was a link that was sent out on the early bird . But he said , if we were asked tomorrow to go to war against a great power , would we be ready to do that ? And it's a rhetorical question , but I think a lot of senior leaders are saying the , the level of training that airmen have been getting and are currently getting is not sufficient to make sure that we are ready for that future fight . And that's what ready arm and training it focuses on and that's where we're trying to go as we continue to mature the program . Yeah , as Colonel mcgill said , yeah . Uh and we'll go back to how rad is tracked and Colonel mcgill is correct . Yes , we track it in mylearning . Uh However , it's a little based on uh some of the changes to mylearning recently . It's a little clunky . Um So we're really kind of , we're , we're finding that as well , but a lot of this data also gets flowed to a FP CS Commander's toolkit for that's found in the Afro connect . So commanders can also go find that um can find that data there . And then eventually , I think the main goal , the main push right now is to get all of this data uh eventually pushed into envision . So envision will that data in commanders then can go out there and really kind of see how things are flowing and see . Uh let envision do its thing to provide that data on , on where everybody's at with their uh RT A completions . Yeah . And Colonel Kind or Colonel Kent , you had your hand up there . Yeah , you know , Chrome mcgill , you know , set it right , readiness , right . It all comes down to readiness and preparing our to deploy . And so taking this a step further , what we're trying to do is not only align training to the A four gen phases , which is that , you know , RT A but it's really aligning training readiness and our inspections program to the A orgen phase is what we're looking at at , you know , the match com and the wing level at least within A MC . And that's it , it's right now , it's tough to do . But I think uh that's where when we need to go and I think that's where we're going . So as , as we get ready to wrap up , uh Colonel mcgill , I kinda wanted to see the floor over to you to maybe talk about , you know , moving forward . I know the R A council is very busy and , and a etc obviously in their supporting role , but uh maybe what are some of the things on the horizon for ready airmen training ? So as I alluded to earlier , the rat council meets uh twice per year and discusses not only where we're trying to go and , and do outs from the council itself , but we also take inputs from all the match coms and component match coms to ensure that we're meeting their training requirements . Um What we're asking is if people have ideas for what we should be training for or better ways to do that , pass that up to your match com representative to bring to the rat council or send us a message directly if you don't know who your , you know , council member is . Um so that we can start incorporating these ideas because we need ideas from the field and uh to , to , to be able to move this training forward and , and tailor it to what airmen uh want and , and need um as the Ready Airmen training Council meets , it's not just our ideas , it , it's , we really need to emphasize that these ideas come from senior leaders and they also come from uh the unit level on up . Um And by marrying those two together , that's how we get after a program that is a for the next fight . Yeah . Uh and just to follow up with what Colonel mcgill said , I mean , we really need actional feedback , stuff that we can take to the council stuff that we can take to refine the RT A S and adjust the current construct because we've got this contract that's out there . We've only been at it just a little over a year now . I mean , it's uh yeah , a year plus 24 days . So we really need some , some , some good feedback from the match coms on what we can do to , to refine these radio training areas . And uh and that's part of one of the things we've just after the last uh uh rat council , that's one of our lines of effort that we're trying to get out there and push this messaging that give us feedback . Let us know what works , what doesn't work , where can we change things ? Um And then , I mean , are also moving forward . As you said , the question was we're looking at advanced technologies , what cap um a little bit more immersive uh augmented reality , virtual reality has been used in pilot training for the last three plus years . Um What can we do with that technology to make some of these RT A S um instead of sitting in front of a computer , at least you put on a headset and you can do something a little bit more immersive , a little bit more gaming technology . So , I mean , it's a younger generation , they like the gaming . So why can't we take advantage of that ? And make these , uh make these training events a little bit more fun , I guess , but relevant . Absolutely . Well , gentlemen , I , I certainly appreciate your time and , and what you guys are doing for our nation and , and helping our airmen , uh get ready for the next conflict . Uh So again , thank you . Thank you , Dan . I appreciate the time today and uh I just wanna emphasize once , once more that if you have any questions about ready airman training , um please reach out to either eight can get those questions answered for you . Hey , yeah , Dan . And just to follow up , yeah , A TC A three XT Ready Airman training . That's our uh our go to email address . If anybody's got comments or questions , thoughts , uh even anything on feedback . Uh and I mean , we'll even take inputs for like combining training events to , to make the ready training areas even better . So what I'm hearing gents is no idea is too , too small or too big . Everything's on the table . Absolutely . Absolutely . I mean , if , if it's a good idea , we will , we will package it and bring it forward to the Ready Airman Training Council and let the council vote . And uh but if it's even a AAA super idea , we'll uh uh coordinate outside of the , the rat council just because it's that good of idea of an idea and get it approved and , and move it out . There's an airman out there right now who just said challenge accepted . So uh awesome . Well , again , thanks everybody . Thank you . Have a great day . Thanks Dan . Yeah , just a downright huge undertaking across the enterprise to increase readiness if you weren't tracking ready airmen training . This was a pretty insightful conversation , love how the A etc team is looking at how to ensure the training is being looked for ways to increase airmen's resilience , the ability to withstand , bite through and recover quickly from disruption . All also found Colonel Ken's insight into rat implementation from a wing and match com perspective and the flexibility of the training to be just fascinating as a reminder , you can follow a etc on social media . We're on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram where you can find Lieutenant General Robinson , our commander on Twitter at A etc underscore commander as well as on Facebook at a etc command team for 24 7 news and notes . You can find us on the web as well at www dot A etc dot am dot Mil . Thanks for checking out the podcast as we dive into the world of recruiting , training and education for our entire A etc public affairs team . I'm Dan Hawkins . So long we'll talk to you next time on the Air Force starts here .