MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- Team MacDill continues to pursue the goal of maintaining mission readiness by conducting a mobility exercise (MOBEX) as well as an aircraft generation exercise (GENEX), Aug. 15-19, 2016 at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida.
The base-wide exercises mimicked a deployment, and allowed Airmen to experience personnel deployment lines, cargo prep for shipment and real-world crisis management.
“During this exercise, I was responsible for giving medical intelligence briefings about the deployed location,” said Senior Airman Alexander Govan, a public health technician assigned to the 6th Aerospace Medicine Squadron. “I make sure everyone understands the health risks and hazards someone might encounter while deployed.”
The exercises were designed to determine mission readiness and the effectiveness of nearly all of MacDill’s various squadrons.
The 6th Logistics Readiness Squadron (LRS) played a key role in this exercise by helping Team MacDill flex its ability to ensure rapid global mobility through the ability to complete the mission.
“As a squadron, we are in charge of rapid mobility deployment in the 6th Air Mobility Wing mobility exercise,” said Airman 1st Class Andrew Small, a fleet management and analysis technician assigned to the 6th LRS. “All of the processes performed during the MOBEX by the 6th LRS are crucial, from marshaling, to joint inspecting, to manifesting; if one of those processes was left out, the MOBEX would fail.”
In addition to the MOBEX, Team MacDill participated in a GENEX, designed for the flying squadrons here at MacDill to undertake the massive effort of deploying several of the KC-135 Stratotankers assigned to the wing.
“The GENEX ran simultaneously with the MOBEX to demonstrate MacDill’s ability to rapidly deploy 6th Air Mobility Wing tankers in support of an overseas mission,” said Master Sergeant Randy Redman, a Wing Inspection Team member. “There were a lot of moving pieces to these simultaneous exercises, and Team MacDill did an excellent job of demonstrating the ability to deploy our Airmen, as well as prep and launch our tankers.”
It is essential to every Airmen to understand why they do their jobs, as well as how to do them.
“The goal is to enable us as Airmen to feel confident in our ability to perform our designated job, and help us gain a better understanding of the reality of deploying,” said Small. “Many of us younger Airmen have little knowledge or experience of deploying, and I think being close up and hands on really helps set things into perspective.”
Training Airmen ensures all of Team MacDill can perform at the highest capability under any amount of stress.
“I was very prepared,” Small said. “The mobility training section of the 6th LRS has a thorough training program, which allows augmentees to have sufficient knowledge when we show up to the cargo deployment function yard.”
Now that the exercises are over, Airmen left this week with a greater knowledge of their jobs, the Air Force, MacDill, and the effort it takes to deploy.
“I believe it has enlightened us younger Airmen about the mobility machine,” said Small. “Unless you partake in this, it is hard to grasp the concept as to why we are here. Once you see all the pieces and the personnel come together fluidly, it gives you a much better perspective.”