Top Story>>Airmen participate in ROCKEX

By Airman 1st Class Rochelle R. Clace
19th Airlift Wing, Public Affairs

Airmen participated in a ROCKEX March 13 and 14 designed to prepare them for short notice deployments throughout their military careers.

“The March 13 to 14 ROCKEX was a deployment exercise to test the wing's ability to pick up and go to war in preparation for possible real-world contingencies and our operational readiness inspection, scheduled for October 2011,” said Lt. Col. Arthur Dunn, 19th Airlift Wing Exercise and Evaluation Team deputy chief.

Due to the recent base realignment that placed the 19th Airlift Wing under Air Mobility Command as the host wing, Airmen must alter the way they train to meet growing demands.

“Since we just transitioned from an [Air Education and Training Command] base to an AMC base, the way we need to exercise has changed,” he said. “Being the only active-duty, [continental United States] lead C-130 wing, our deployment responsibilities have grown substantially, and our base exercise program has been expanding to meet this requirement.”

Colonel Dunn explained that normally during a full ROCKEX, Airmen practice all operational phases, which are initial response, employment, mission support, ability to survive and operate and redeployment. The base leadership elected to exercise only phase I during this ROCKEX.

“That translates to the base receiving an execute order to deploy to a forward operating base and immediately preparing and executing a plan to prepare and process required equipment, cargo and personnel,” he said. “The exercise ended after all personnel were processed and aircraft were loaded with cargo and equipment.”

Throughout the two-day exercise, personnel in key processes such as the Commander's Senior Staff, Command Post, Maintenance Operations Center, Aircraft Generation, Deployment Control Center, Personnel Deployment Function, Cargo Deployment Function, as well as all the “would-be-deploying” units worked tirelessly to meet the deployment timeline requirements.

The EET members were present at every location to evaluate the multitude of processes it takes to get a wing moving during a short notice deployment.

“The [Personnel Readiness Flight] line directors extended a helping hand to those individuals whose first time deployment this was – both the deployers and the processors. You could see a light turn on,” said Tech. Sgt. Alfrado White, Communications Squadron EET. “They were helping the individuals get a feel for things, making a link between theory and hands on in an extension of training.”

According to Colonel Dunn, the exercise was a step in the right direction towards implementing efficient, valuable training for the wing.

“Overall, the exercise was a success in that we gained valuable training and insight on processes that need refining,” said Colonel Dunn. “For the next ROCKEX we will build on what we learned here and expand the scope of our exercise operations to build realistic and effective training for the wing.”