Wing tested on crisis response

  • Published
  • By Capt. Mike Chillstrom
  • 319th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
GRAND FORKS AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. --  If world events spark a late-breaking basewide mobilization, the 319th Air Refueling Wing should be even more prepared to deploy en masse after this week's exercise.

The March 19-21 exercise was an opportunity to apply Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st Century principles to the wing's ability to process people and cargo for a deployment. In particular, officials were looking for ways to make the Personnel Deployment Function (PDF) line more efficient.

After the exercise, the AFSO21 office plans to meet with the deployment processing teams and "go over the data collected from the exercise as a base line measurement to start developing improvements from," said 1st Lt. Andrea Lamoreaux of the wing's AFSO21 office.

In addition to streamlining the PDF line process, the exercise helped prepare Airmen who are deploying this spring by verifying their training and personnel records were in order.

In all, nearly 400 people and mobility folders were processed in the PDF line this week. Thirty tons of cargo was also loaded onto KC-135s, providing logistics Airmen and boom operators with valuable training, said Senior Master Sgt. Daniel Smith, Inspector General superintendent.

Nearly 130 deployment specialists from the 319th Mission Support Group came together to execute the mission order, said 1st Lt. Jason Locatelli, installation deployment officer with the 319th Logistics Readiness Squadron.

"Like every exercise, there are processes that we can improve, but that's one important reason why the AFSO21 team is observing our processes," said Lieutenant Locatelli. "We'll take the IG, AFSO21 and base personnel recommendations and determine how we can best implement them into the deployment process."

Whether it was dealing with high winds, maintaining open lines of communication or learning to adapt with personnel changeover, many participants agreed that future deployment actions will benefit from the challenges faced during this week's exercise.

"Hopefully we'll have some process improvements, lessons learned and get some good training out of it," Sergeant Smith said.