1st SOCS trains "any time, any place" during Sand Dollar exercise

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Joe McFadden
  • 1st Special Operations Wing Public Affairs
HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. --  The 1st Special Operations Communications Squadron put their global war-fighting and readiness support skills to the test during a week-long, uninterrupted training exercise on Okaloosa Island, Fla., Aug. 8-12.

Known as "Sand Dollar," the quarterly exercise is a collection of real-world scenarios designed to give newly-assigned communications Air Commandos a taste of tactical operations in a deployed environment, as well as an opportunity to exemplify the squadron's motto of "Science, Swiftness and Strength."

"Training is the root of any successful operation," said Lt. Col. James Sahm, 1st SOCS commander. "We designed this to keep skills sharp with our Airmen and the deployable equipment."

Sahm said the objectives of Sand Dollar are to provide Airmen a chance to "deploy" to an austere site as well as learn self-sufficiency.

"Too often it's easy to run back to a building for something you forgot to ship on the pallet," he said. "This adds some realism to the training."

Just as real-world events can take place at the drop of a hat, so did the kickoff of Sand Dollar.  The exercise began just past midnight as Airmen hit the ground running and set-up their tents at the shore-side destination within hours of receiving a no-notice recall.

"Cross-utilizing fixed-base personnel skill sets to meet the demand of deployable personnel is also a goal of the exercise," Sahm said. "I can take Airmen out of a fixed-base work center and deploy them along with the gear and other tactical personnel and be confident they are task-qualified to do the mission."

Inside the tents, 1st SOCS Airmen simulated ground-to-air communications with actual 4th Special Operations Squadron AC-130 gunships flying thousands of feet over the area. They also received live feeds from unmanned aerial vehicles and relayed them to on-site commanders for instantaneous situational awareness.

Scenarios ranged from exercise injects such as power outages to real-world weather conditions, including thunderstorms and high winds throughout the week.

"This is much different from what we do on a day to day basis," said Airman 1st Class Reannen Purser, 1st SOCS circuit actions technician. "You get exposed to more than your Air Force Specialty Code and see how everything ties together in the implementation."

At the exercise's conclusion, Airmen had to tear down and transport equipment as quickly as they originally deployed.

This exercise tied directly into the 1st Special Operations Wing's mission of "any time, any place," said 1st Lt. Devin Bordelon, 1st SOCS tactical missions, plans and theater deployment communications officer in charge.

"You need communication to successfully carry out any mission objective," Bordelon said. "Our goal is to provide commanders with the tools to do their job as well as train our three-level Airmen how to do that downrange. We've been putting our training to good practice while becoming one integrated unit."