AF reservists team up to teach Army cargo ops Published July 8, 2014 By Tech. Sgt. Mark R. W. Orders-Woempner 434th ARW Public Affairs GRISSOM AIR RESERVE BASE, Ind. -- As former Yale professor Halford Luccock once said, "no one can whistle a symphony - it takes an orchestra to play it," and such is the case with the composition of modern military power. Coming together in the harmony of global reach were Air Force reservists from Grissom and Wright- Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, as they taught Army Reservists mobility airlift loading operations here recently. Both the Airmen of Grissom's 49th Aerial Port Squadron and Wright- Patterson's 89th Airlift Squadron took a day to show reservists from the Army Reserve's 766th Transportation Battalion based out of South Bend, Indiana, how to build cargo pallets for airlift and how to load a Humvee and a heavy expanded mobility tactical truck into a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft. "This was a mobility exercise where we practiced deploying and redeploying organic equipment and Soldiers," said U.S. Army Maj. Deon Considine, 766th BN support operations officer. "If we're going to rapidly deploy, it's going to be through the Air Force with their assets." While deploying their equipment via Air Force aircraft may be a reality of modern warfare and global military response, for many of the 766th BN Soldiers, this training provided them with their first opportunity to do so. "A lot of our NCOs have done it before, but some of the junior enlisted who haven't been overseas haven't had any experience like this," said U.S. Army Sgt. Sandy Saldivar, 766th BN motor transport operator. "We transport things, and we need to be able to do that around the world, so it's important to know how to secure and load our own cargo." While the 49th APF trainers said they could tell their Army Reserve trainees were new to the air mobility process, that inexperience created enthusiasm that helped the training go well. "You could definitely tell by their reaction that was their first aircraft they've ever been on," said U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Skyles Fullenkamp, 49th APF aerial port specialist. "With the chains and devices we use, it can be somewhat complicated, but they were really gung-ho and nailed it down by the end of the training." While the training by all accounts was a success, it was the first phase in a much larger plan to get the Soldiers fully trained to deploy their equipment on Air Force aircraft. "This was a crawl phase because you have freshly trained mobility planners and Soldiers who have never done this before, so they are learning," said Considine. "For the walk phase we are going to try to bring them down again and actually flying them somewhere." Even though it was just the start of becoming proficient, the major said it gave his Soldiers value beyond how to tie down a truck in an aircraft. "Working with the Air Force was the best thing of it all as we worked outside of our bubble," he explained. "Almost all of our major operations are carried out in a joint environment, so it's always good to exercise jointly." The 49th APF is part of the 434th Air Refueling Wing, the largest KC-135R Stratotanker unit in the Air Force Reserve Command. Stay connected with the 434th ARW on Facebook and Twitter.
