Mission success, one Airman at a time

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Rachelle Coleman
  • 354th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska --  Armed with an Airman's Manual and mission oriented protective posture gear, Eielson Airmen completed a week long Ability to Survive and Operate exercise May 6.

The ATSO consisted of eight stations and a "base X" scenario in accordance with the new Pacific Air Forces concept of operations. While the stations taught Airmen skills from putting on their gas masks and how to initiate Self-Aid Buddy Care to protecting vehicles and assets, the base X provided more of a command and control situation for commanders and a smaller group of Airmen.

"Two weeks ago this was just a blank snow covered field. The Exercise Evaluation Team got together with the Civil Engineer Squadron and built tents and moved all of the equipment out here. The [354th Maintenance Squadron Aerospace Ground Equipment flight] helped by putting light carts, generators, and heaters out here so we could keep people warm on the cold mornings," said Lt. Col. Mark La Rue, 354th Fighter Wing Plans and Programs chief of exercises. "We set this entire area up so the exercise evaluation team is able to teach the ability to survive and operate and we're able to run people through stations out here."

Past ATSOs have evaluated a handful of individuals from each unit; this ATSO is set up so that each Airman on base has a chance to review these much-needed skills.

"We can put 100 individuals through in two hours depending on how well they're doing," said Colonel La Rue. "Because of the good weather we've had great success with it."

By the middle of the week close to 600 Airmen had been through ATSO, with plans to put another 600 through by Friday - which would be every available Airman stationed at Eielson.

An exercise of that magnitude requires a lot of equipment not readily available to every Airman, but that didn't hurt the ability of EET members to train.

"A lot of the training is just stepping them through everything in the Airman's Manual with the experts out here showing them what they need," said Colonel La Rue.

"What I hope is that they get the sense of urgency if they're in 'base X' because if you go to Korea or the desert that's what it may be like in certain situations," said Master Sgt. Nancy Forrester, 354th Fighter Wing plans and programs evaluations and inspections superintendent. "For Airmen going through the stations I hope they become more familiar with different skills they don't often use."

Every Airman evaluated was graded pass or fail on each of the stations. These scores will be used to show commanders where individual units need additional training.

"I think it just makes everyone a little more prepared because when we're not in a combat environment people can get complacent," said Sergeant Forrester, "but at any time you could drive down the street and use self-aid buddy care and this kind of puts a refresher in your mind. It keeps everyone aware."

"So long as I get to one Airman out here and he deploys and uses this information to save a life, then it's affected the mission greatly because we have an Airman that can continue to operate," said Colonel La Rue.