Warrior Week
My husband is getting ready to deploy for Warrior Week tomorrow...He's so incredible:
http://www.afa.org/magazine/Dec1999/1299warrior.asp
Picture this scene: A large group of airmen, living in a tent city near an improvised airstrip, eating field rations and staying alert day and night, placed under stress and kept constantly on guard for any number of unpleasant surprises, which could be anything from air bombardment or missile attack to infiltration by an enemy force.
Air Force veterans of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, the Balkans, and numerous smaller operations would find nothing unusual about the situation.
However, these airmen probably did not ever step into this kind of environment until they entered an actual combat zone. For today's new recruits, it is becoming a routine part of Basic Military Training at Lackland AFB, Texas.
It is all part of what Air Education and Training Command calls "Warrior Week." The full seven-day program opened officially Oct. 1 and incorporates an earlier Field Training Experience, called an FTX, which lasted 36 hours. Trainees in their first five weeks of service life learn to pitch tents, handle an M-16 rifle, and carry out their duties in a stressful environment.
The environment, for some, can be dangerous. In a tragic turn of events, an 18-year-old trainee at Lackland died on Sept. 12, two days after collapsing near the end of an FTX. Micah Schindler of Cincinnati was the first Air Force recruit to die at Lackland in five years. Lackland has been conducting FTX training for two years. Col. Stefan Eisen Jr., commander of the 737th Training Group, said Schindler had given no indication that he was in trouble before collapsing as he stood in line to wade through a waist-deep stream near the end of the FTX's 5.8-mile march. The Air Force has initiated a review to determine what happened.
Warrior Week is an unusual type of training for members of the Air Force. Traditionally, USAF has made only limited efforts to teach enlisted members some basic soldiering skills. Since most were expected to maintain advanced weapons or support air operations, USAF saw little need to prepare the troops for combat conditions. It offered physical conditioning and instruction in close-order drill but concentrated on preparing airmen for technical training and later duty in the high-tech world of modern aerospace.
That was then--before the end of the Cold War.
Now, the services have rewritten their job descriptions to include humanitarian deployments, contingency operations, and peacekeeping. Moreover, the Air Force over the last decade has closed many of its overseas bases and redesigned itself as an Expeditionary Aerospace Force, comprising packages of units that can be assembled for a given purpose and moved quickly to world trouble spots. The Air Force estimates that 85 percent of all airmen entering the force today will deploy to a world hot spot at least once during their career. And as recent events have shown, it's no longer just aircrews that can find themselves in harm's way.
Basic military trainees at Lackland AFB, Texas, keep their gear dry as they cross a creek during the new seven-day Warrior Week program, which became a key feature of USAF recruit training on Oct. 1. (USAF photo by SSgt. Chuck Widener)
"Change the Culture"
Gen. Lloyd W. "Fig" Newton, head of AETC, recently declared his command will play a major role in the Air Force's transition into the EAF, beginning with Warrior Week.
"We need to get new airmen into the deployment mind-set right from the beginning of their military careers," said Newton. "We need to change the culture, so when these airmen get to their first duty stations after technical school they will already know the deployment basics."
The command now assigns high priority to giving recruits a fuller acquaintance with the basics of living in the field, said Maj. Terry Schuller, Warrior Week flight commander in the 737th Training Support Squadron at Lackland.
"We have gotten away from the forward deployed bases and we have moved more toward a contingency type of tasking," said Schuller. "You have seen that in Somalia and Desert Storm and several similar operations.
"Many of our troops were going out there with no idea what a tent even looked like. So we're trying to familiarize them with the operational living environment, living in tents, sleeping on cots. We need to qualify them in areas that will make them deployable immediately following basic training.
"They need training in self-aid and the buddy system, in anti-terrorism, basic defense tactics, and nuclearbiologicalchemical warfare. It's readiness training. And they need at least familiarization with the M-16 and combat tactics."
This sort of training cannot easily be adapted to a formal school setting. For that reason, Lackland has created the kind of tent city that airmen are likely to encounter when they are sent out on real deployments. For a week, they experience the life of a warrior up close.
"The biggest thing is taking the trainees away from the carpet and the cable television of the dormitory and explaining to them what they have just signed up for," said SMSgt. Christopher Dobbins, Warrior Week operations superintendent. "Too many of the kids coming in today think that this is some kind of IBM computer training."
Dobbins went on, "While education and benefits are great tools for recruiting, we have to be sure that the trainees leave here understanding that they're part of a new expeditionary force. We want to give commanders an airman who is capable of being deployed, not somebody they still have to train."
The Air Force was not alone in deciding that new recruits needed something more than drill and academic studies. In recent years, a number of review groups, including at least one Congressional committee, concluded that all services need more rigor in their early training programs.
The First FTX
The Air Force took its first step in that direction by adding the Field Training Experience to its BMT program about two years ago. The first FTX began as a 12-hour, overnight operation. FTX then grew into a 24-hour session of war gaming and recently was expanded to 36 hours.
"That gave the trainees a very small glimpse of what the expeditionary Air Force looks like," said Dobbins. "We have built on that in constructing Warrior Week."
Dobbins said AETC also "looked at what the other services were doing and took the best of the best." He explained, "We went out to see the Crucible at the Marine Corps, the Army's Victory Forge, and the Navy's Battle Stations. We took some of the best ideas from our sister services and tailored them to what the Air Force does."
What evolved is a seven-day exposure to some of the conditions members can expect in any deployment, culminating in a more rigorous taste of mock combat conditions. The environment of the main Warrior Week camp is only slightly more austere than that of Lackland's, but the trainee's life becomes more basic as the week wears on.
When they arrive on a Sunday afternoon, the tents already are erected. Both living and academic tents are air-conditioned. They have hardened latrine facilities with showers and shaving facilities. Much of the teaching of the academics is done with audiovisual equipment.
There are four distinct units-the Airey, Harlow, Kisling, and Barnes Groups, named for the first four Chief Master Sergeants of the Air Force. The recruits will train for several days at the main encampment and, toward the end of the week, they ride the bus to another site for M-16 familiarization. From there, they march to the FTX area, which is a more austere environment simulating a forward deployed location.
At that camp, there are no air-conditioned tents, no running water, and no showers. There is also sleep deprivation. Trainees learn how to erect tents. The whole exercise will be built around an actual mission, defending the base from invasion by the enemy, a role played by the instructors. At the end of the FTX deployment, they perform a 5.8-mile march out.
Nuclear, biological, and chemical training during Warrior Week helps produce airmen who are better prepared for deployment when they report to their first assignments. (USAF photo by Robbin Cresswell)
Among the Elite
The trainees still will have a week to go in BMT, but Warrior Week is a major milestone in the training. A ceremony will mark the end of the ordeal. The trainees will receive their first US collar insignia and some token of their achievement. Back at the dorm area, they will eat a special "warrior meal" apart from other trainees, but the main mark of recognition will be a change of title.
"The ceremony welcomes them into the enlisted corps," said Schuller. "Before that, they are known as trainees. From that day on, they will wear the blue uniform and be called Airmen. It's a right they will have earned, not something that has been given to them. And we'll make it a point for underclass trainees to see these upperclass members have moved into the enlisted corps. It will give them something to reach for."
The newly designated Airmen will have special privileges for the final week of their training. After graduation ceremonies, to which parents are invited, they go on to technical schools for added training and then to operational units. If the new approach works as the Air Force hopes, they will remember Warrior Week as the turning point in their training, the event that marked their transition from recruits to full-fledged members of the force.
http://www.afa.org/magazine/Dec1999/1299warrior.asp
Picture this scene: A large group of airmen, living in a tent city near an improvised airstrip, eating field rations and staying alert day and night, placed under stress and kept constantly on guard for any number of unpleasant surprises, which could be anything from air bombardment or missile attack to infiltration by an enemy force.
Air Force veterans of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, the Balkans, and numerous smaller operations would find nothing unusual about the situation.
However, these airmen probably did not ever step into this kind of environment until they entered an actual combat zone. For today's new recruits, it is becoming a routine part of Basic Military Training at Lackland AFB, Texas.
It is all part of what Air Education and Training Command calls "Warrior Week." The full seven-day program opened officially Oct. 1 and incorporates an earlier Field Training Experience, called an FTX, which lasted 36 hours. Trainees in their first five weeks of service life learn to pitch tents, handle an M-16 rifle, and carry out their duties in a stressful environment.
The environment, for some, can be dangerous. In a tragic turn of events, an 18-year-old trainee at Lackland died on Sept. 12, two days after collapsing near the end of an FTX. Micah Schindler of Cincinnati was the first Air Force recruit to die at Lackland in five years. Lackland has been conducting FTX training for two years. Col. Stefan Eisen Jr., commander of the 737th Training Group, said Schindler had given no indication that he was in trouble before collapsing as he stood in line to wade through a waist-deep stream near the end of the FTX's 5.8-mile march. The Air Force has initiated a review to determine what happened.
Warrior Week is an unusual type of training for members of the Air Force. Traditionally, USAF has made only limited efforts to teach enlisted members some basic soldiering skills. Since most were expected to maintain advanced weapons or support air operations, USAF saw little need to prepare the troops for combat conditions. It offered physical conditioning and instruction in close-order drill but concentrated on preparing airmen for technical training and later duty in the high-tech world of modern aerospace.
That was then--before the end of the Cold War.
Now, the services have rewritten their job descriptions to include humanitarian deployments, contingency operations, and peacekeeping. Moreover, the Air Force over the last decade has closed many of its overseas bases and redesigned itself as an Expeditionary Aerospace Force, comprising packages of units that can be assembled for a given purpose and moved quickly to world trouble spots. The Air Force estimates that 85 percent of all airmen entering the force today will deploy to a world hot spot at least once during their career. And as recent events have shown, it's no longer just aircrews that can find themselves in harm's way.
Basic military trainees at Lackland AFB, Texas, keep their gear dry as they cross a creek during the new seven-day Warrior Week program, which became a key feature of USAF recruit training on Oct. 1. (USAF photo by SSgt. Chuck Widener)
"Change the Culture"
Gen. Lloyd W. "Fig" Newton, head of AETC, recently declared his command will play a major role in the Air Force's transition into the EAF, beginning with Warrior Week.
"We need to get new airmen into the deployment mind-set right from the beginning of their military careers," said Newton. "We need to change the culture, so when these airmen get to their first duty stations after technical school they will already know the deployment basics."
The command now assigns high priority to giving recruits a fuller acquaintance with the basics of living in the field, said Maj. Terry Schuller, Warrior Week flight commander in the 737th Training Support Squadron at Lackland.
"We have gotten away from the forward deployed bases and we have moved more toward a contingency type of tasking," said Schuller. "You have seen that in Somalia and Desert Storm and several similar operations.
"Many of our troops were going out there with no idea what a tent even looked like. So we're trying to familiarize them with the operational living environment, living in tents, sleeping on cots. We need to qualify them in areas that will make them deployable immediately following basic training.
"They need training in self-aid and the buddy system, in anti-terrorism, basic defense tactics, and nuclearbiologicalchemical warfare. It's readiness training. And they need at least familiarization with the M-16 and combat tactics."
This sort of training cannot easily be adapted to a formal school setting. For that reason, Lackland has created the kind of tent city that airmen are likely to encounter when they are sent out on real deployments. For a week, they experience the life of a warrior up close.
"The biggest thing is taking the trainees away from the carpet and the cable television of the dormitory and explaining to them what they have just signed up for," said SMSgt. Christopher Dobbins, Warrior Week operations superintendent. "Too many of the kids coming in today think that this is some kind of IBM computer training."
Dobbins went on, "While education and benefits are great tools for recruiting, we have to be sure that the trainees leave here understanding that they're part of a new expeditionary force. We want to give commanders an airman who is capable of being deployed, not somebody they still have to train."
The Air Force was not alone in deciding that new recruits needed something more than drill and academic studies. In recent years, a number of review groups, including at least one Congressional committee, concluded that all services need more rigor in their early training programs.
The First FTX
The Air Force took its first step in that direction by adding the Field Training Experience to its BMT program about two years ago. The first FTX began as a 12-hour, overnight operation. FTX then grew into a 24-hour session of war gaming and recently was expanded to 36 hours.
"That gave the trainees a very small glimpse of what the expeditionary Air Force looks like," said Dobbins. "We have built on that in constructing Warrior Week."
Dobbins said AETC also "looked at what the other services were doing and took the best of the best." He explained, "We went out to see the Crucible at the Marine Corps, the Army's Victory Forge, and the Navy's Battle Stations. We took some of the best ideas from our sister services and tailored them to what the Air Force does."
What evolved is a seven-day exposure to some of the conditions members can expect in any deployment, culminating in a more rigorous taste of mock combat conditions. The environment of the main Warrior Week camp is only slightly more austere than that of Lackland's, but the trainee's life becomes more basic as the week wears on.
When they arrive on a Sunday afternoon, the tents already are erected. Both living and academic tents are air-conditioned. They have hardened latrine facilities with showers and shaving facilities. Much of the teaching of the academics is done with audiovisual equipment.
There are four distinct units-the Airey, Harlow, Kisling, and Barnes Groups, named for the first four Chief Master Sergeants of the Air Force. The recruits will train for several days at the main encampment and, toward the end of the week, they ride the bus to another site for M-16 familiarization. From there, they march to the FTX area, which is a more austere environment simulating a forward deployed location.
At that camp, there are no air-conditioned tents, no running water, and no showers. There is also sleep deprivation. Trainees learn how to erect tents. The whole exercise will be built around an actual mission, defending the base from invasion by the enemy, a role played by the instructors. At the end of the FTX deployment, they perform a 5.8-mile march out.
Nuclear, biological, and chemical training during Warrior Week helps produce airmen who are better prepared for deployment when they report to their first assignments. (USAF photo by Robbin Cresswell)
Among the Elite
The trainees still will have a week to go in BMT, but Warrior Week is a major milestone in the training. A ceremony will mark the end of the ordeal. The trainees will receive their first US collar insignia and some token of their achievement. Back at the dorm area, they will eat a special "warrior meal" apart from other trainees, but the main mark of recognition will be a change of title.
"The ceremony welcomes them into the enlisted corps," said Schuller. "Before that, they are known as trainees. From that day on, they will wear the blue uniform and be called Airmen. It's a right they will have earned, not something that has been given to them. And we'll make it a point for underclass trainees to see these upperclass members have moved into the enlisted corps. It will give them something to reach for."
The newly designated Airmen will have special privileges for the final week of their training. After graduation ceremonies, to which parents are invited, they go on to technical schools for added training and then to operational units. If the new approach works as the Air Force hopes, they will remember Warrior Week as the turning point in their training, the event that marked their transition from recruits to full-fledged members of the force.