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BORCEA AIR BASE, Romania — Airmen assigned to the 435th Contingency Response Support Squadron at Ramstein Air Base and Airmen assigned to the 31st Maintenance Squadron at Aviano Air Base, Italy, combined their knowledge and experience to provide training to Romanian air force personnel at Borcea Air Base, Romania, July 12 to Aug 4.
The mission for the engagement is to advise, train, and assist the Romanian air force in several maintenance and supply-related capabilities to potentially improve Romanian air force processes and efficiency while upholding positive support in allied partnerships.
“We are here to offer them best practices, techniques, and procedures on how we, the U.S. Air Force, operates in these specific capabilities,” said U.S. Air Force Capt. Lauren Alto, 435th CRSS Air Advisor Flight commander. “The air advisors have augmented subject matter experts from across U.S. European Command and have leveraged their expertise along with the Language Enabled Airman Program to facilitate the instruction and training.”
The handpicked subject matter experts developed curricula for the training.
“I prepared for my teaching portion by speaking with some of my supervisors and coworkers, and working to identify specific objectives that I could teach to assist the Romanians,” said U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Johnathan Martin, 31st MXS electrical and environmental craftsman. “Once I had the objectives, I was able to tailor my curriculum more accurately.”
Maintainers observed the Romanian’s practices on their latest assets, the F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft.
“We discussed some of the problems they have been having with their aircraft to see if there were any tips or suggestions that we could make to improve their process,” said Martin.
Overall, Martin said he enjoyed working with the Romanian air force maintainers.
“Sharing my knowledge has always been a very rewarding experience for me, and the host nation was extremely accepting,” he said. “I enjoyed every minute of my time with them as I hope they enjoyed having me.”
Romanian air force Warrant Officer Adrian Roshu, systems specialist, said he found the training helpful.
“We improved our knowledge about the system,” he said. “Now it’s easier to isolate the problems that might appear in the future.”
U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. D’Andre Mucker, 86th Logistics Readiness Squadron material management technician, provided training on supply management.
“We focused on providing U.S. Air Force basic supply knowledge to our allies,” said Mucker. “We also visited the Romanian’s warehouses to provide input and see their current supply procedures.”
Mucker said his team was well-prepared going into the training because they kept an open mind and had a flexible syllabus.
“From day one of training, many of our plans were altered, but our main focus was to provide only the needed material to our partners and also provide input on the Romanians’ new material management operations,” added Mucker. “I believe that we succeeded with both due to our flexibility and willingness to comprehend what was asked of us.”
The U.S. supply Airmen walked away with a positive experience.
“Knowing that we can be a part of something so big, and being able to say we played an active role in building multinational relationships is just a good feeling,” said Mucker. “The team that was provided to us were all amazing and had very valuable input for the course. Lots of knowledge was shared, and many new relationships were made.”
Relationships between the U.S. and Romanian air forces will continue to grow as Airmen plan future engagements.
“We want to continue to build partnerships with our allies, and by doing so we strengthen relationships between our nations,” said Alto. “That’s something that you can’t buy; it has to be earned. Overall, I think we’ve done that.”
