USNORTHCOM commander visits, observes Angel Thunder

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Jake Richmond
  • 355th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. --  Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander of both North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, visited the base April 20 to observe Exercise Angel Thunder 2010.

The exercise is the largest of its kind in the world, incorporating more than a thousand people and dozens of aircraft from the U.S. Air Force and Army, other Defense Department agencies, and six partner-nation governments.

After surveying the complex training going on at multiple locations in the nearby desert, General Renuart shared his thoughts on Angel Thunder in a flight-line interview.

Question: Why did you take the time to come observe Angel Thunder?

General Renuart: As commander of U.S. Northern Command, we have a very real role both in homeland defense and also in defense support to civil authorities. Part of that is search and rescue - we are the inland SAR coordinator for the United States. The second piece is for our disaster response, that peacetime humanitarian search and rescue is also a big part of our mission. So, it was a great opportunity for me to come and see not only the combat skills, but also the humanitarian skills and the international partnership that we're demonstrating through the exercise. That fits into our mission set every day.

Question: Talk more specifically about the Air Force. In your mind what would the Air Force be without the personal recovery mission?

General Renuart: One of the core missions of our Air Force is to have the capability to go and recover our Airmen wherever they may be, whether they're down from an aircraft or isolated from their units. But also our Army and Marine Corps. As you know, today in Afghanistan, today in Iraq, we are providing critical missions of medical evacuations from the combat zones - using all of our combat-search-and-rescue skills every day. So, for the Air Force, this is really part of our core. You can't really have a better venue (than Angel Thunder), and it allows the Air Force really to demonstrate one of the really crucial competencies that we advertise to our coalition and service partners.

Question: What kind of specific challenges does NORTHCOM face within the overarching personnel recovery mission?

General Renuart: We're asked to provide support to civil authorities across a broad spectrum. It could be something like support to law enforcement along the border. It could be something like rescuing civilians who are hikers in the mountains. But it's also a broader mission where we begin to talk about large-scale disaster response - large-scale earthquakes, large-scale hurricane response. Hurricanes Gustav and Ike were great examples where we deployed a substantial capability to be able to start in immediately after the winds had died enough to put airplanes in the sky. We had the largest SAR force ever assembled after Katrina, but we didn't have the kind of integrated planning and exercising that allowed us to be as effective as we ought to be. This gives us that capability. And, for NORTHCOM, to be able to make sure that we can coordinate air space, integrate with unmanned systems, integrate with our other interagency partners - all of those make our mission more successful, if we can do that without having to learn those lessons at the site of a disaster. Exercise, training, interagency participation is our bread and butter every day. So for us, this exercise is really important.

Question: In your experience, what's the most impressive aspect about the PR mission and its people?

General Renuart: The most impressive, the most important, the most meaningful is when that victim, that detainee, that rescued Airman gets off of that airplane and is returned. That's what this is all about. We train PJ's who can fight their way into difficult situations, provide first-responder medical care that's world-class, (and) get them out of harm's way. We can provide the structure around that to provide air support, to provide command-and-control, communications...but it's all about having that person or those folks get off the airplane at the end of that mission. So, there's no better mission than that.

Question: Obviously, you command an AOR that includes the U.S.; what do you think the American public most needs to know about the military rescue mission?

General Renuart: Well, I think until you have a crisis, you don't see the kind of training and professionalism that's represented by this force. Also, our job, in addition to defending away from our homeland, it's also to defend our people in the homeland. And it may be defense from Mother Nature and not necessarily another nation-state attacking us. But it's all the same skill sets, and they're here to make sure our citizens are safe and secure.