1st, 27th SOW begin deployment exercise

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Christopher Callaway
  • 1st Special Operations Wing Public Affairs
CANNON AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. --  The 1st and 27th Special Operations Wings gathered together to begin an Emergency Deployment Readiness Exercise at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., Aug. 25, 2014.

An EDRE is a rapid deployment exercise for air and ground forces in response to an emergency threat situation.

The overall mission of this EDRE is to conduct a full-mission exercise. The scenario is to insert Special Operations Forces and extract four U.S. Embassy members, a situation that could happen overseas or down range.

"The guys currently down range are doing great work," said Lt. Col. Phil Forbes, 1st Special Operations Air Operations Squadron commander. "We want to make sure we prepare here so we can continue to perform the mission successfully."

The intent of the exercise is for the two wings to work together ensuring interoperability, operations run efficiently, effectively and safely.

The first step to reaching this intent is to establish a cohesive operational risk management plan that satisfies the needs of command and control staff and the members conducting the mission.

"Our goal is to give a clear commander's intent to crews stepping out on tasks," said Col. Sean Farrell, 27th Special Operations Group commander. "If we can pass mission orders clearly and effectively, then we know our experts will be able to figure out the best course of action in case the command and control crews are not reachable."

Once the plans are established within the exercise, crews from the 1st and 27th SOW can begin merging their different styles of operations into one unified plan of action.

This plays into another goal of the exercise, which is to take Airmen from the two different locations and have them work together as one Joint Special Operations Air Detachment to execute the mission.

For some Airmen, this simulated deployment exercise is their first glimpse of deployed operations.

"We have younger crews we need to expose to these operations," said Farrell. "This is a great opportunity for us to show them deployed operations as we transition some of these forces into real-world operations."

The commanders overseeing the exercise understand there are learning curves with younger members. They hope this EDRE can accelerate the level of tactical maturity expected during operations in a deployed environment.