621 CRW Airmen help support weapon school

by Staff Sgt. Gustavo Gonzalez
621st Contingency Response Wing Public Affairs

12/18/2012 - JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J.  -- More than 60 Airmen from the 621st Contingency Response Wing got a chance to hone their skills and help train Weapons School students at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., Dec. 2, 2012.

The 621st CRW from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., helped support the Mission Employment Exercise 12B of weapon school. It's a capstone exercise and part of the Weapons School Graduate Course, an opportunity to apply everything learned during the six-month course.

During the ME phase, a joint assessment team traveled to five locations where many different scenarios played out to give students the most realistic training experience possible.

"The Contingency Response Element portion of our exercise participated in six flight training days by providing aerial port, command and control, communications, and maintenance support," said Maj. Brad Bowyer, CRE commander from the 817th Contingency Response Group.

"Additionally, we took this opportunity to practice our own internal training requirements for Joint Task Force-Port Opening (JTF-PO) verification," he said.

The JTF-PO is a command and control expeditionary capability designed to rapidly establish an initial theater port of debarkation aiding in deployment and distribution operations supporting military contingencies, humanitarian aid, and disaster relief operations.

"To further facilitate our mission capabilities, the 817 CRG invited four members from the 690th Rapid Port Opening Element to practice joint assessment team procedures," Bowyer said.

According to Senior Airmen Timmothy McKinny, 817th CRG radio frequency transmission journeyman, the exercise was a great experience with great opportunities to advantage of expeditionary training.

"I have benefitted from this exercise by being able to see exactly how I contribute to the mission, and also learning how I can improve for the next exercise or real world situation," he said.

"This exercise has gone amazingly well, and is a true testament to the flexibility of our versatile, mobility Airmen." added Bowyer.

The ME phase ended Dec. 12.