DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz -- Airmen from the 355th Wing executed exercise Bushwhacker 21-2, as well as participated in exercise Mobility Guardian 2021, at locations across the country, May 17 - 25, 2021.
The wing’s rescue and attack missions trained to improve capabilities in dynamic forward adaptive basing and agile combat employment as the Dynamic Wing continues to develop and remains on the leading edge of the Air Force.
“Participating in these exercises allowed our squadron to work from a forward operating base and maneuver out to four contingency locations in less than a week,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Gary Glojek, 354th Fighter Squadron commander. “With the mobility assets here to help us move, we were able to fulfill training orders and missions including integrated combat turns, landing on an unpaved runway; and build-up and sustain a base using the skills our multi-capable Airmen have learned over the last year.”
This training proves the readiness of our Airmen meets the needs of tomorrow’s Air Force today by operating in potentially austere and contested environments with minimal command and control. In doing this, the Dynamic Wing has continued to prove that it can rapidly wield combat airpower anywhere, anytime to deter and defeat any adversary.
“By having mobility assets here to reconstitute our gear and our people like we would need downrange, we are training a capability that we don’t always have,” Glojek said. “Typically, resupply of fuel and weapons is one of our biggest challenges and having mobility aircraft bring us what we need helps us turn jets from smaller contingency locations and stay in the fight. This helps us move to more contingency locations and see how we can become more agile, lethal and resilient.”
The way the Air Force becomes more agile, lethal and resilient is by resting on the foundation of the Dynamic Wing, the multi-capable Airmen.
“We are in a different environment, setting up tents and making the best of what we can with a new, unfinished runway,” said Senior Airman Emilio Castro, 354th Aircraft Maintenance Unit A-10 Thunderbolt II crew chief. “Doing this proves the versatility of the A-10 and the unit that supports it as we prepare for the operations we expect to see in the future. The Air Force is becoming more multi-capable through making Airmen more agile and flexible.”
The Air Force is innovating the way it operates to empower Airmen to lead and propel the service towards the future force that the nation’s needs. The Dynamic Wing is accelerating this change by setting the standard for how we are going to operate, move and win.
“We are learning a lot of new skills, which proves our ability to accomplish the mission in any situation,” Castro said. “This process is a lot of learning to communicate and work with other jobs, so crew chiefs can perform fuels or logistics tasks, if needed. This is not something we are used to and it pushes us to be innovative in the way we handle situations and solve problems.”
Over 200 multi-capable Airmen from Davis-Monthan participated alongside hundreds of other Airmen from across Air Combat Command and Air Mobility Command, which makes these Airmen more interoperable with each other, which creates a more ready and lethal force.
“By working together, ACC and AMC are making our squadron and our Airmen more agile and more survivable,” Glojek said. “To actually accelerate change, we have to have exercises with enough ambiguity that senior leaders are truly being forced to make tough decisions. It was extremely important to get our Airmen and assets into a new environment so we can take risks, make decisions, learn from our mistakes and actually accelerate change.”