Photo By Tech. Sgt. Joshua Horton | A Kentucky Air National Guard C-130J Super Hercules aircraft arrives at Amedee Army...... read more read more
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Around 100 Airmen from the Kentucky Air National Guard’s 123rd Contingency Response Group joined more than 50 Soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 359th Inland Cargo Transfer Company to participate in a week-long U.S. Transportation Command exercise here in August, successfully revalidating the units’ capability to operate a Joint Task Force-Port Opening.
The JTF-PO mission is designed to safely and effectively distribute cargo and supplies to austere areas affected by catastrophic events or conflict, said Lt. Col. Brian Stoops, commander of the 123rd Contingency Response Squadron and JTF-PO deputy commander. Air Force units typically operate an aerial port, receiving and offloading equipment arriving by aircraft, while Army forces handle the ground transportation component, moving materiel to its final distribution point. Contingency response units must be re-certified to execute the mission every three years.
“We’re evaluated on our ability to rapidly deploy, assess the suitability when we get here, and execute a transportation mission, bringing cargo and personnel into the airfield and then getting them to a forward node,” Stoops said. “It can be under combat conditions where we’re bringing in soldiers, weaponry and ammunition, or it can be under humanitarian conditions where we’re filtering humanitarian relief supplies to the local population.”
The exercise required Airmen and Soldiers to operate in field conditions and respond to simulated events that tested their preparedness for the real thing. Simulated cargo was downloaded from Kentucky Air Guard C-130J Super Hercules aircraft and transported to the forward node by U.S. Army Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Trucks. According to Col. Aaron Zamora, 123rd CRG commander, the biggest challenge was the “tyranny of distance” between the landing zone and forward node.
“Typically, the forward node is around 2 1/2 miles away, but due to this training environment, it was 8 1/2 miles away,” he said. “In the beginning, it was slow to get rolling, but once we synced with our Army counterparts, we were able to pick things up to an incredible speed and move cargo faster than we ever have in previous iterations of JTF-PO.”
Stoops said the most important part of the exercise was the opportunity it provided the Airmen to train and test their preparedness for real-world missions.
“I was very deliberate to say that my number one priority was to use the time and energy and resources that we’re putting into this to make our unit more ready for real-world operations,” he said. “Secondly, it’s to highlight any resource shortfalls that we might have.”
According to Stoops, the smaller size of the 123rd CRG as compared to other groups is essential to the success of its mission: to be rapidly deployable. Having a larger group would create too many logistics and equipment needs. This means the group must be comprised of Airmen who are multi-capable with many skills.
“To be rapidly deployable you have to be light, lean and agile,” Stoops said. “When there’s only so many people and such a large requirement, you cannot have an Airman that just knows one thing. We have pilots out here pushing pallets, we have personnelists building tents, we have communications people doing airfield assessments.”
U.S. Army Capt. Ornella Brierre, commander of the 359th Inland Cargo Transfer Company, commended the performance of the Kentucky Air Guardsmen and lauded the synergy between the two units.
“The 123rd is one of the more professional and really outstanding organizations that I’ve had the chance to work with in my time in service,” Brierre said. “I don’t know if that is because of their leadership or the passion — maybe a combination of both — but it’s clear that these guys are really after the mission and they really want to continue to work hard to dominate. For us, it’s really endearing and really humbling to be able to work with guys that fight the fight.”
| Date Taken: | 11.30.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 12.16.2024 11:35 |
| Story ID: | 487579 |
| Location: | AMEDEE ARMY AIRFIELD, CALIFORNIA, US |
| Web Views: | 25 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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