AMC airpower comes together in mobility exercise

Published March 7, 2016
By Senior Airman Lauren Pitts
Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst Public Affairs

GULFPORT, Miss. -- Airmen from the 305th Air Mobility Wing, 87th Air Base Wing, 621st Contingency Response Wing and 514th Air Mobility Wing touched down in Gulfport, Mississippi March 5, 2016 as part of the operational readiness exercise Crisis Response 03-16.

The week-long ORE marks the first time the four wings have come together for an operational readiness exercise and will assess the ability to generate, launch and recover aircraft while providing global mobility.

"This is a great opportunity for all the synergies to come together," said Lt. Col. Michele Lobianco, 305th AMW Operations Support Squadron director of operations and Air Expeditionary Group commander, on the merging of the units.

The exercise is chance for Joint Base MDL units to flex four of its wings to train like they fight, explained Lt. Col. Dan Lang, who serves as 305th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron commander and the 305th AMW Deployed Maintenance Squadron commander.

"This is about rapid global mobility excellence," Lang said. "Not just providing it out of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, but proving that we can pick up and do it from anywhere."

Aside from all of the different wings being together in the same place at one time, there is another unique aspect to this exercise, explained Lobianco, who tried to include as many 3-level Airmen as possible.

"You can say 'I want my best people on this,' and you already know what the results will be," Lobianco said. "But what does that accomplish? I want to know how we can get more experience for these younger folks that will be out the door on real deployments in a few months."

Lobianco and Lang believe there's no better way to set Airmen up for success than to expose them to real-world operations and allow them to see first-hand where they fit into the big picture.

"This is a great opportunity for these Airmen to peek behind the curtain and get a glimpse of what's coming their way," Lobianco said. "This way, while they're completing their training, it will mean something."

Lang noted that the extra training and exposure is not just for the younger Airmen. He feels that leadership can equally benefit from having less experienced, lower ranks participating.

"You can come here with a stacked deck of experienced maintainers, but our young Airmen surprise me every day with their innovation," Lang continued. "I'm learning from the 3-levels, and I'm a better leader because they're here."

Another priority for Lobianco is emphasizing the total force aspect of the exercise. With all of the participating wings calling Joint Base MDL home, it's important to bring lessons learned in a deployed environment back to the homefront.

"I really want us to work on relationships when we're home at the joint base," Lobianco said. "We're part of the same team, just with different numbers in front of our wings."

"I want us to identify seams and gaps between our agencies," Lang added. "If we can identify and fix them here and then we do this real-world, they're already worked out and our Rolodexes are full."

With a week's worth of operations ahead, leadership is confident that all Airmen involved, regardless of their wing or rank, will be able to use the exercise as an opportunity to identify strengths and weaknesses, and make strides to improve them.

"Attitude is everything," said Lobianco. "Bring it on. We're ready, and we'll see where the week takes us."

Operational Readiness Exercise