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Hickam Airmen not playing around during ORE

By Staff Sgt. Nathan Allen, 15th Wing Public Affairs / Published September 18, 2012

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JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii -- Airmen from the 15th Wing, 647th Air Base Group, and 154th Wing played an unusual game of dress up Sept. 11-13 during an Operational Readiness Exercise here focused on testing the ability of Airmen to don Mission-Oriented Protective Posture, or "MOPP" gear, and survive simulated chemical attacks in an austere environment while keeping the mission rolling.

The exercise is a preparatory event for a November 2013 Operational Readiness Inspection, which will give upper command staff personnel an opportunity to observe the state of readiness of Airmen under their leadership to sustain and fight a war in a downrange location.

The exercise was a joint effort between the 154th WG, who predominately provided the manpower and aircraft, and the 15th WG and 647th ABG who provided a large planning piece.
"This was our first phase-two exercise, or combat effectiveness readiness exercise, whereby the combined forces of the 154th, 15th, 647th deployed to a downrange 'Base X' location and fought in a phase-two (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and high-yield Explosives) type exercise in austere conditions away from their normal work centers," said John Tauber, 15th Wing and 647th Air Base Group chief of exercises and inspections.

As a phase-two exercise, evaluators forewent the phase-one, or "deployment phase" normal exercises employ. This means the players went through what Tauber called a "hot start," in which all buildings, equipment, and personnel are prepped beforehand in order to begin the exercise in an "employment downrange" event. This allowed evaluators to focus only on observing players' abilities to operate and fight in a CBRNE environment.

According to Maj. Jon Baize, Exercise Evaluation Team member and Chief of Standards and Evaluation for the 15th Operations Group, part of these duties included generating the ability to maintain air superiority.

"The big things that this exercise is evaluating are: our abilities to launch and recover aircraft, set up a base station, and set up some kind of command and control leadership element," he said. "We also have to be able to generate aircraft with aircrew flight equipment, maintenance, airfield management, current operations, and all the different pieces that have to come together to launch a crew."

As a total force exercise, both active duty and guard players got the opportunity to benefit from each other's experience while responding to exercise injects.

"Not everyone gets a chance to work in these kinds of situations every day," said Tech. Sgt. Daniel Hinojosa, 15th Operations Support Squadron C-17 Globemaster III aircrew flight equipment operations NCO-in-charge. "This has definitely been a good learning experience for both sides as far as what the other side brings to the plate and sharing lessons learned."

Tauber said that while the exercise was successful in itself, it also creates a foundation for other learning opportunities in the future.

"The planes got off, they completed their missions successfully, and we did it in a safe manner," Tauber said. "There were some challenges, but we learned a great deal about the road ahead and some things that we need to do better from a ground war perspective specifically. Overall the exercise was a positive effort and a success as far as finding out what we need to do to go forward."

While Baize praised the players for the "exponential way" they evolved and grew during the course of the exercise, he also stressed the urgency involved with ensuring both individuals and units are ready to respond to contingency operation requirements

"The reason we train is because we could end up having to do this next week," Baize said. "This is something that we're tasked with being proficient enough to accomplish at any time without the luxury of having three weeks to get everything together and figure out what to do...we exercise so we get all of that out of the way. We show that we can perform so when that day does come, our guys are ready to go."