Photo By Staff Sgt. Scott Warner | An 821st Contingency Response Squadron Airman holds a power cable during a part task...... read more read more
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TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- Under grey, cloudy and stormy skies, a deluge of rain fell over an already water-saturated Travis Air Force Base, November 21.
Meteorologists with The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration call these types of heavy storms: bomb cyclones, which can happen when a cold air mass collides with a warm air mass, rapidly intensifying a storm.
According to local CBS news channel 13, some areas around Sacramento, experienced a month’s worth of rain in just 24 hours.
Yet despite the inclement weather, that didn’t stop the 821st Contingency Response Squadron, better known as the Hellhounds, from training for a possible deployment.
Outfitted in All Purpose Environmental Clothing System (APECS) rain-resistant parkas, the Hellhounds pushed forward during a Part Task Trainer (PTT) November 20-21, which focuses on practicing specific skills and tasks repeatedly.
“The rain during the PTT was a welcomed change for us compared to the harsher conditions at other training exercises,” Airman 1st Class Olivia Dietz said, an 821st Contingency Response Squadron aerial port mobility team member. “Although we haven’t worked much in rainy conditions, this type of weather is what we can expect in others areas around the world in which we execute our mission in.”
Dietz’s mindset was shared by many Hellhounds who experienced the same challenging environmental stressors at previous training exercises this past year. During Exercise Storm Crow, which was a critical training exercise that validated chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear environment readiness, temperatures reached as high 103 degrees Fahrenheit while the Hellhounds wore Mission-Oriented Protective Posture gear for hours to protect themselves during a simulated wartime environment.
Now, almost two months after being added to a standby deployment roster, the Hellhounds are still waiting to deploy their full contingency response element and team to a real-world event. However, the Hellhounds lead the rest by continually demonstrating that they will train until called upon and maintain their mission-ready focus, regardless of the external conditions.
“The 821st CRS primary focus was on executing our mission in a peer threat environment with hub and spoke planning factors,” Capt. Christopher Cotten said, 821st CRS training flight commander. “There was a shared focus on mission planning and risk mitigation considering peer military capabilities throughout the PTT.”
Defined under Agile Combat Employment doctrine, a hub and spoke distribution is “a physical distribution system, in which a major port serves as a central point from which cargo is moved to and from several radiating points to increase transportation efficiencies and in-transit visible.” In order to be more efficient during the PTT, the Hellhounds deployed many ACE concepts and schemes of maneuverability to increase survivability and generate more combat power in a contested environment.
A peer-adversary warfighting scenario proposes many challenges to the United States as it hasn’t since World War II. To put this in more relatable terms, this would be as if the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls (72 wins, 10 losses) went up against the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors (73 wins, 9 losses) in a winner-takes-all basketball game to be the best basketball team of all time. Those stakes would be incredibly high, but a war with a peer-adversary that is just as capable as the U.S. Department of Defense would have even greater stakes as it would be a matter of life or death.
This is why the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Gen. David W. Allen, talks about our era as The Great Power Competition, and in order to be successful in such a heavily contested environment, Airmen must be able to do more.
“I assess that all of our Airmen are multi-capable: in fact, I’ve yet to meet somebody that’s singularly capable,” Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David A. Flosi told Air & Space Forces Magazine back in June. “Mission-ready is very specific: it means you are assigned to a specific organization that is going to employ a certain airpower methodology in a contested environment and we need you to be ready to execute that mission.”
Essentially, anyone who wears a CR tab on their shoulder is trained to be multi-capable, it is the nature of working within contingency response. To be a Mission Ready Airman for the 621st Contingency Response Wing and U.S. Air Force, the Hellhounds need to be trained in certain areas such as:
- setting up a contingency response element, which is a team of approximately 100 personnel comprising of more than 30 career fields.
- engaging in asset dispersal training
- reacting to theater ballistic missiles and small unmanned aircraft systems
“Something innovative I noticed during the PTT was intentionally considering a proactive approach to theater ballistic missiles, one-way attack unmanned aerial systems and land attack cruise missiles through dispersal distances of assets,” Cotten said. “Maximizing the distance apart is one area we trained on differently that has real world application.”
Additionally, through curiosity and opportunity, contingency response Airmen always seem to have a chance to build upon their current skillset.
“I definitely noticed during this PTT that everyone was willing to help out one another and showcase what they do,” Dietz said, who was additionally an 2024 3rd quarter 821st Contingency Response Group award-winning recipient. “I had an opportunity to work with Air Ground Equipment Airmen on how to better operate a generator, which I know will be helpful in the future.”
Despite working during a bomb cyclone and atmospheric river affecting the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento areas, which is storm categorized as having the ability to carry up to 15 times the average flow of water at the mouth of the Mississippi River, the Hellhounds made progress on their mission readiness training.
“I am immensely proud to be part of this team that always rises to meet the challenge,” McDade said. “Hellhounds continually demonstrate their selfless dedication to the mission and ability to constantly lead the rest in any type of contingency response environment.”
Thankfully, the 821st CRS Hellhounds only experienced more than three inches of rainfall on November 21 during the main portion of the PTT’s field exercise according to Senior Airman Adriana Campos, an 821st CRS weather forecaster. However, in other areas of Northern California, some cities such as Angwin and Yuba City, experienced more than 17 inches of rain as of November 22, causing massive flooding and power outages.
Dietz mentioned that although the conditions could have been worse, she was still grateful for the opportunity to work on furthering her skillset to sharpen her deployment readiness.
“Our Airmen haven’t just been busy building their own skills, they have also been working hard to bring us new capabilities,” Flosi said. “Even when it comes to technology, our key competitive advantage is our Airmen, […] the key to all of our transformations efforts is our Airmen.”
| Date Taken: | 11.21.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 12.27.2024 15:20 |
| Story ID: | 488375 |
| Location: | TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, CALIFORNIA, US |
| Web Views: | 75 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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