Lessons learned: EET compiles results, improves base readiness

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Erik Hofmeyer
  • 482nd Fighter Wing Public Affairs
HOMESTEAD AIR RESERVE BASE, Fla. --  One of the most important ingredients of a successful Operational Readiness Exercise occurs for days and even weeks after the simulated smoke, explosions and war time taskings.

The 482nd Fighter Wing Exercise Evaluation Team is currently compiling an extensive after action report on "Deliberate Tropic 08-01," the moniker given to the base-wide ORE held March 8-11.

"The exercise was an opportunity to update, change and revise our own processes to ensure desired results are achieved while responding to real-world scenarios," said Lt. Col. Virgil Hamaty, 482nd FW performance planner and deputy Exercise Evaluation Team chief.

"The feedback we're receiving is that there was a lot of great interaction, learning and training that occurred from the exercise," Colonel Hamaty added.

Colonel Hamaty credits the expertise of personnel around base with the success of the exercise.

The process started with subject matter experts from the participating wing organizations providing what they thought was important for their people to know and do in a current deployed environment.

Armed with these inputs, the EET, which is composed primarily of senior non-commissioned officers evaluating their own specialty areas, wrote the exercise script to include scenarios designed to provide the desired training.

The result was an exercise mirroring real world situations Airmen are facing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For example, the exercise didn't focus as much on the full spectrum of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats as in previous exercises because there is less probability of U.S. servicemembers facing these threats in Iraq and Afghanistan than in past real world deployed locations. Instead, higher emphasis was given to more likely events such as mortar and sniper attacks, and self aid and buddy care. Chemical warfare training was still incorporated into the exercise because it's still important for Airmen to be able to do their job in a chemical environment, said Mr. Jason Sundin, 482nd Mission Support Group Emergency Management Office.

The exercise was also meant to serve other valuable objectives.

It was challenging enough that people couldn't just approach things routinely. They had to think about what they were doing and adapt to new situations and make decisions where they didn't have enough information as they'd like, which often happens in real world missions, Mr. Sundin said.

Also, the training exercise was designed to include fewer events than a traditional ORE.

Normally, there would be scenario after scenario and everyone would be really busy the whole time. The EET intentionally created gaps in this exercise to allow participants time to discuss and learn from the scenarios, and adapt to roles in the new command and control system used by deployed forces, Colonel Hamaty said.

And the learning process wasn't limited for those who weathered the simulated attacks and various scenarios.

"While everybody is learning, so is the EET. We're learning through feedback from everybody else on the base, and we're trying to figure out how to make a better exercise and make the scenarios more realistic. Learning from each other makes us all better in the end," Colonel Hamaty said.