Photo By Senior Airman Austin Harper | Senior Airman Melvin Williamson, Cyber Systems Operations (left) and Staff Sgt....... read more read more
CAMP MURRAY, Wash. — The Washington Air National Guard’s 111th Air Support Operations Squadron completed a field training exercise in Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest Aug. 3-4.
The field training serves as a practical refresher on expeditionary skills, such as land navigation, plotting courses on tactical maps, forward equipment setup, camp concealment tactics, and field health and hygiene.
The 111th ASOS is expected to provide air support services in any condition, including extreme, austere and isolated environments. This sort of field training prepares Airmen for operating in any condition. On top of serving as a much-anticipated refresher for many Airmen in the 111th, it was also the first time in the field for many newer members of the squadron. Senior Airman Derek You, a network operator with the 111th ASOS, spent his quarterly drill hurrying to all of the different training stations that the various instructors had set up.
“The training was pretty even and pretty constant. It was great training. Great food. Just great environment overall," You said.
Even though he is relatively new to the unit, You said that he’s been welcomed in and feels like family.
“The morale is great,” said You.
Maj. Doug Sparacio, Chief of Intelligence and Operations Flight Commander in the 111th ASOS, said that the training was a success on all fronts.
“It was a good chance to get camaraderie. There’s just nothing like being out in the woods,” said Sparacio. “There's a lot of people who came from units that don’t go out to the woods to camp. So this is a kind of good bonding experience… We have training requirements we got to do with as far as, you know, map reading, radio use, GPS. We hit a lot of those items out here today.”
As the conditions the Air Force faces in the world change, these expeditionary field skills are becoming more and more vital.
“The next fight may not be a setup base. Like we've all been used to for the last 15 and 20 years. It may be in the middle of nowhere,” Sparacio said.
The frequency of these trainings is also likely to increase, according to Sparacio. During the COVID-19 emergency, the 111th ASOS’s priorities and resources already being stretched made finding the time to get their Airmen all out to the field together very challenging.
Following the pandemic, Exercise Phoenix Dawn — a 194th Wing-wide exercise that took place in May and simulated a heavily contested home station environment — became a major focus of the 111th.
“In 2020 we were planning on going again, then COVID happened so that kind of stopped everything. Then we spent the last two years prepping for the wing mobility exercise and figuring out if we could do what we said we can do,” said Sparacio.
Maj. Marc Buker, who served as the project officer for Exercise Phoenix Dawn, said the 194th Wing impressed inspectors during their observation of the exercise.
With the 111th ASOS’s focus shifted back to field training, these events are expected to become a regular occurrence.
“It had probably been a couple of years at least since we last did this,” Sparacio said. “It was a lot of fun. Fun and getting the training done? That's a win-win in my book.”
| Date Taken: | 08.06.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 08.09.2023 15:06 |
| Story ID: | 450808 |
| Location: | CAMP MURRAY, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 205 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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