Joint Base Mcguire-Dix-Lakehurst -- GULFPORT, Miss. - Jersey Devil 19, a U.S. Air Force mobility exercise involving six wings, began Feb. 27 and focused on training in rapid global mobility enabling Airmen to deploy in a moment’s notice to deter crises around the world.
Participants in the exercise included Airmen from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, Dover Air Force Base, Delaware and Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina, making it the largest joint base mobility exercise since 2009.
“Jersey Devil is a mobility exercise that tests our ability to deploy forces, operate in an environment downrange and then re-deploy back to home station,” said U.S. Air Force Col. Jaqueline Breeden, 305th Air Mobility Wing commander. “We expanded on that by using participants from multiple wings, making it more dynamic this year, which was by design.”
When the exercise officially kicked off, the 621st Contingency Response Wing from Joint Base MDL arrived on scene and simulated building a bare base, properly setting up an area which would be turned over to a simulated air expeditionary wing in the future.
U.S. Air Force Col. James Hall, 621st CRW commander, believes exercises like this help Airmen develop proper techniques to deter adversaries in a war environment.
“Exercises in my opinion are essential for the Airmen because we owe it to them to make sure they are trained on what they are expected to do if we go to war,” said Hall. “The last thing that we want to do is send an Airmen into a situation where they don't feel comfortable to operate.”
Training scenarios that Airmen faced during Jersey Devil 19 included simulated munitions attacks, chemical contamination as well as opposing forces assaults, while continuing their daily work tasks.
“I think we have folks that have built some confidence in their abilities to do their jobs in an environment that isn't your normal operation,” said Breeden. “And that confidence bears fruit in the ability to do their job, and to do it safely, effectively and rapidly.”
To ensure that Airmen were correctly reacting to training scenarios, the inspector general from the 621st CRW had wing inspection teams from six wings oversee each simulation. They then provided data to Air Mobility Command to ensure errors can be corrected in the future.
“I felt like during this exercise we made a generational leap, especially in our data collection and our assessment plan,” said Don Brien, 621st IG. “We identified areas that each wing were doing well at, as well as not, but we found a lot of data that will help us to improve in the future.”
With ground forces training being one part of the exercise, another key area of focus was on aircrew and their corresponding aircraft, which were provided by Joint Base MDL and Dover AFB.
“One responsibility in this exercise is airlift and to provide air refueling to the warfighter,” said Breeden. “Whether the airlift is for resupply efforts or humanitarian assistance, we have to be ready to employ our weapon systems and we have to be able to support those efforts.”
With over 700 participants, 1,200 master scenario events and 280 complex scenarios, Breeden is confident Jersey Devil 19 has empowered Airmen to dominate in the future.
“I never had any fear that we wouldn't be able to execute this exercise,” said Breeden. “We have some fantastic Airmen who take their training seriously and put effort behind everything they do. There are lessons to take away from this and that’s what we wanted to see.”