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U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Operations School instructors with the 423rd Mobility Training Squadron from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, traveled to Ramstein Air Base, bringing their knowledge and expertise to U.S. Air Forces in Europe logistics officers and planners, as well as other personnel involved in behind the scenes operations of deployment readiness.
It was the first time the 423rd MTS sent out a “Super MTT.” The mobile training team carried three courses for logistics personnel and multiple question and answer sessions for unit deployment managers.
The Installation Deployment Officer Course, a seven-day course offered six times a year in residence at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, was one of the three courses offered to USAFE personnel. IDOC takes logistics officers through everything from contingency planning — “the what-ifs in war” — to crisis action planning, redeployment, and reintegration of their people.
Attendees practiced briefs they will be responsible for giving to leadership, obtained instruction on how to train others, and worked through a simulated shift in the deployment control center.
U.S. Air Force Capt. Derrick Lohr, 86th Logistics Readiness Squadron assistant installation deployment officer, said he went in to the class expecting to gain a fuller knowledge of his duties.
“A lot of what we do makes more sense,” he said after the course.
Lohr immediately employed the knowledge and relationships he built while attending the class. Shortly after conclusion of the course, he worked with two of his classmates in the deployment control center during a base exercise.
“It was nice having group reps that had been to the class,” he said.
Others, including U.S. Air Force Airman 1st Class Samone Pitts, 86th LRS logistics plans journeyman, attended the other classes Deliberate and Crisis Action Planning and Execution Segments (DCAPES) and the Logistics Module (LOGMOD) training.
“My overall take away from DCAPES was understanding how each role comes into play and gaining insight on what the process is like as far as how and when it’s done,” Pitts said.
DCAPES is as an Air Force tool used by logistics planners to do daily operations for wartime and exercise planning, execution, and accountability. More than half of the students that attended the DCAPES training, also attended the LOGMOD training. LOGMOD is another system used regularly by logistics planners as a management tool providing command and control capabilities to plan and execute worldwide movement of forces.
When it came to LOGMOD, Pitts said she came away understanding how the order of every function affects each other and how important it is to do them in a specific order.
Bringing the team to Ramstein, as opposed to sending students stateside for the same training, had more benefits than just saving USAFE money.
“I probably wouldn’t have taken in as much info as I did if I had went stateside because the jet lag would have taken over.” Pitts said.
Future Super MTTs are in the works for the Expeditionary Operations School, with two scheduled in fiscal year 2019.
