JBER Airmen hone skills in Polar Force 12-7

by Staff Sgt. Zachary Wolf
JBER Public Affairs

11/2/2012 - JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaksa -- Sirens blared and a voice called over the public address system. In response, Airmen donned gas masks and protective gear. Some Airmen searched around their building for unexploded ordinance, while others checked paper to see if the simulated attack was a chemical one.

Although this scenario was an exercise that happened last week on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, it provided effective training to keep JBER ready to handle such events and prepare for the 2014 Operational Readiness Inspection.

"Our Polar Force 12-7 was designed in response to a simulated war-time scenario to test our ability to... generate aircraft, people and equipment in response to a regional crisis," said Air Force Col. Brian Duffy, 673d Air Base Wing commander.

This exercise embodied the Total Force concept as it combined efforts and personnel from the 673d ABW, 3rd Wing, 176th Wing, and 477th Fighter Group and lasted from Oct. 19 to 26. The purpose was to validate the units' ability to integrate, mobilize and prepare assigned personnel, aircraft and equipment for their wartime mission and to employ forces and weapons systems to perform tasked missions.

Duffy explained the exercise development.

"We used a simulated intelligence scenario to develop a picture of what this regional crisis must look like and then in response to a simulated warning order, simulated prepare to deploy order, and a simulated deployment order," Duffy said. "The wings combined to generate people, equipment and aircraft in response to that simulated regional crisis."

There were two phases to the exercise. The first phase was designed to test JBER's ability to deploy and redeploy people as well as mobilize equipment.

During the second part of the exercise, JBER focused on analyzing the systems that project combat power and practiced responses to various emergency scenarios.

"As well as we've done during this exercise, we've taken a lot of notes on areas in which we can improve and want to use valuable experience to focus our efforts for our combined readiness inspection in 2014," stated an email from the commanders of the 673d Air Base Wing, the 3rd Wing, the 176th Wing, and the 477th Fighter Group.

The three colonels from the represented wings wanted to thank everyone for a job well done.

"Thanks again for all your hard work and dedicated efforts to make our Polar Force 12-7 exercise so successful," Duffy said. "Whether you were part of the team that was out helping generate aircraft, people, and equipment in response to a simulated wartime tasking, or whether you were part of our exercise augmentation team or one of our moulage victims, ensuring our sense of realism was the best we could provide for our participants. Whether you were working behind the scenes at one of our child development centers ensuring that exercise participants could focus on the task at hand or manning our gates to ensure installation operations continued on as normally as possible. You have our collective thanks."

"To the total-force Arctic Warrior team, thanks. You have proven this week as a team you can generate, deploy, and employ combat readiness and air power," said Air Force Col. Dirk Smith, 3rd Wing commander. "Awesome job."

"To the Midnight Sun Guardian experts, outstanding job putting your best foot forward as a total force enterprise and showing everyone what you are capable of doing," said Air Force Col. Donald Wenke, 176th Wing commander. "We are ready to step up to the next set of operations."