News

Maintainers, Defenders team up for advanced readiness training

  • Published
  • By 2nd Lt. Nicholas Loftin
  • 461st Maintenance Squadron

Over the past year, the 461st Air Control Wing at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, has been teaming with the Guardian Centers at their campus in Perry, Georgia, to conduct advanced readiness training for its Airmen. On Sept. 13, 2019, 25 Airmen from three different Robins squadrons teamed up and took on this challenge.

“This type of readiness training is outside of the box when we think of normal base level readiness training,” said Maj. Frederick Jackson, 461st Maintenance Squadron commander. “It encapsulates leadership development, team building, Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Environmental training, self-aid buddy care and complex problem solving into a one day training scenario. It is enabling my Airmen to meet the ‘train hard and coldly realistic’ expectation set by Air Combat Command leadership.”  

In the first ever intra-base effort, an integrated team of E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System aircraft maintainers assigned to the 461st MXS, 116th Maintenance Squadron, and defenders from the 78th Security Forces Squadron, participated in a rigorous day of team-building and problem-solving exercises in a controlled but contested environment at the Guardian Center.

“Teaming up and putting my defenders alongside maintainers to train, allows all of the Airmen an excellent opportunity to cross-talk and receive firsthand experience into how our fellow Airman think and operate,” said Maj. Joshua Webb, 78 SFS commander.

The Guardian Center provides specialized training scenarios that allow the Airmen to exercise their ability to participate in teams and complete tasks while under the constant pressure of the simulated events of the Metroplex. This includes exercising the use of CBRNE gear, combat exposure, controlled chemical attacks and hostile fire situations.

The opportunity to invest in our Airmen’s readiness enables them to be constantly ready to deploy highlights the unique missions at Robins AFB and the importance of integrating teams across the multiple wings assigned to the base.