European allies gain important knowledge at Angel Thunder

  • Published
  • By Capt. Jennifer Pearson
  • Air Combat Command Public Affairs
DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. --  The United States and its Air Force lead the way in personnel recovery, which Airmen prove in the Davis-Monthan-grown exercise Angel Thunder. Yet as the personnel recovery exercise has grown, joint and allied partners are joining the annual event to learn from and share with its U.S. Air Force partners.

Since Angel Thunder's inception, attendees have increased, gaining participants and observers from sister services, allied nations, and U.S. government organizations. Other allied nation's military and military organizations participate in or observe the exercise to gain valuable knowledge to implement in their training programs and improve operations in the joint environment.

"Angel Thunder is the only exercise that is solely focused on the conduct of personnel recovery. We start with preparation, planning, execution and adaptation," said Col. Billy Thompson, 563rd Rescue Group commander and Angel Thunder exercise director. "We use the exercise to hone our skills across the range of military operations from disaster relief, hurricane Katrina situations, to the recent efforts in Haiti. It is crucial for us to be ready when our nation calls, to execute the mission."

To improve the capabilities of the European Air Group's personnel recovery teams, Lt. Col. Uwe Schleimer, from the German Air Force and member of the EAG, asked to be included in the planning and execution of Angel Thunder 2010 as an observer. His goal is to take the exercise organization, execution, and lessons learned back to the joint personnel recovery division of the EAG.

"We are here to achieve two objectives," said Colonel Schleimer. "The first is to get acquainted with our partners and to ensure the American and European way [of personnel recovery] is not diverging from how we accomplish the mission, and identify differences because if you are aware of the difference you can avoid problems."

The second, colonel Schleimer explained, is to learn how the exercise is set up so he can replicate smaller scale scenarios in Europe for the Combined Joint Personnel Recovery Standardization course.

"It is important to see how the planning is done here at Angel Thunder so I can learn how best to improve what we currently have," said Colonel Schleimer.

Joint and allied operations are common occurrences with today's military operations. An exercise like Angel Thunder allows the participants to learn from each other so when they get the call, joint and allied partners are prepared to execute anytime, anyplace.

"Doing training in the joint and combined environment is an important issue for standardization. If you don't know what people are supposed to do or planning to do you can't be predictable, and predictability is important in order to achieve effectiveness," said Colonel Schleimer. "If you planned to work in a combined and joint operation you must train in a joint environment. You must train as you fight because that is the only way you succeed."