Air Force Reserve kicks off Patriot Warrior at Grissom

by Tech. Sgt. Mark R. W. Orders-Woempner
434th ARW Public Affairs

5/5/2014 - GRISSOM AIR RESERVE BASE, Ind. -- While most maps place Grissom in the heart of the Hoosier state, to more than 500 Air Force reservists from around the United States, it is now located in a foreign nation and has become the tip of the spear for ongoing wartime operations.

While scenario may be fictitious, the work being accomplished at the staging base for Operation Patriot Warrior here is all too real.

Patriot Warrior, which kicked off at Grissom April 25 and will last until May 17, is a joint, field training exercise for theater aeromedical evacuation systems and ground medical components designed to replicate all aspects of combat medical service support.

"This is our 16th year doing this exercise," said Kevin Shadden, Air Force Reserve Command contingency specialist. "This started as a small aeromedical evacuation exercise and has grown to incorporate more than 17 different functional areas within AFRC."

"The Air Force Reserve has a great many people in the aeromedical field, and they get tasked every day to go fly different types of airplanes for contingency operations worldwide," said Lt. Col. Donald Richey, 910th Operations Group deputy commander from Youngstown Air Reserve Station, Ohio, who was running the exercise operations at Grissom. "This is a great opportunity for them to spend their annual tour stateside, get the experience of operating in field conditions, and flying aeromedical evacuation missions out of a barebones base,"

For that reason, Patriot Warrior is not just about Air Force reservists participating in a sanitized exercise on an Air Force base.

"There are approximately 4,000 Army reservists and 400 Navy reservists involved in combat and medical evacuation operations at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin," explained Shadden. "The intention is to provide a training platform for our Air Force reservists to get realistic, wartime training with Army and Navy forces."

While Air Force reservists from 28 different bases are involved with transporting equipment and aeromedical evacuation operations, with 14 of those operating out of Grissom, Army reservists are handling security and combat operations while Navy reservists have set up a medical facility to handle the simulated wounded.

AFRC units participating in the exercise at Grissom hail from Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Georgia; Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina; Travis Air Force Base, California; Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio; Pittsburgh International Airport Air Reserve Station, Pennsylvania; Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station, New York; Scott Air Force Base, Illinois; Buckley Air Force Base, Colorado; Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi; Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland; Hill Air Force Base, Utah; Luke Air Force Base, Arizona; Youngstown and Grissom.

In the Patriot Warrior 14 scenario, an allied country was invaded by the likewise fictitious one to secure an oil pipeline. The allied nation requested support of the United States, which formed a coalition and pushed the majority of enemy forces out of the invaded nation. Still, pockets of enemy special forces remain, which is what the exercise participants are encountering.

For this scenario, all equipment headed into the invaded country is being routed through Grissom.

"We're moving the cargo downrange for the warfighters of this exercise," said Senior Master Sgt. Brian Armstrong, 67th Aerial Port Squadron superintendent from Hill.

"We're basically the FedEx of the Air Force," elaborated Tech. Sgt. Timothy Lyvers, 49th Aerial Port Squadron aerial port specialist from Grissom. "We've moved over 800,000 pounds of cargo in just the first three days, including over 44 pieces of rolling stock and 82 pallets, with the majority of those pallets weighing more than 8,000 pounds."

Various aircraft, including C-5 Galaxies, C-17 Globemaster IIIs, C-130 Hercules and KC-135R Stratotankers have all been flying in and out of Grissom to move that cargo and personnel from point A to B, which takes a lot of work and attention to detail.

"You have to first get the cargo from wherever it's coming from, build it up, determine if it's hazardous or not, compile the paperwork, have it inspected to make sure it's airworthy and then draw up load plans," explained Lyvers. "Then, we get to use our muscles and load it onto an aircraft."

To do all of that for so much equipment in such a short time has pushed the aerial porters to their limits.

"So far it's been rough, and the reason I say that is because it's been very high tempo, and high tempo is good; we like to work," said Lyvers. "We've been working 12-hour days, night and day, for 24-hour operations trying to get these guys their equipment so they can build their base from the ground up."

While they may be both the brain and the brawn of supplying the warfighter, many of the aerial porters made references to working behind the scenes.

"This isn't a glamorous job; if you want to have a football analogy, you're on the offensive line down in the mud," said Lyvers. "You get no glory for it, but we love it; the satisfaction comes from knowing that we're helping get cargo downrange to the warfighter."

While only a few days into the exercise, Richey said things are well underway with only a few hiccups.

"Things are going fairly smooth here getting started, but down range they've had challenges getting communications equipment up and working," he explained. "They're in tents in field conditions, and with all the rain they've had, the dirt landing zone we were going to be operating off of is now a mud landing zone, so we've had to relocate the airfield a couple different times already.

"That's the way this exercise works," Richey continued. "If thunderstorms come in, they have to adapt to it and deal with it just like they would for real-world operations."

Despite those challenges, the lieutenant colonel said everyone was pulling together to get the mission accomplished.

"It's like when you're in the (U.S. Central Command area of operations), where you have a bunch of units come together to support a mission," echoed Lyvers. "We've got a lot of intelligent people here, and we've all meshed together immediately to hit the ground running."

While Grissom is the staging base for this year's exercise, it may not be in the future.

"The location changes every year because it adds to the scenario," said Richey. "If you have an exercise at the same place every year, things get a little bit stale because you see the same things."

To emphasize how big the exercise has become over the years, Shadden pointed to 13 distinguished visitors who are scheduled to witness operations at Fort McCoy. Those include Maj. Gen. Richard Haddad, AFRC vice commander, and three DVs from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs.

"This is very high visibility and a great way to show off what the reserve components can do," concluded Shadden.

Grissom is home to the 434th Air Refueling Wing, the largest KC-135R unit in the AFRC. Airmen and aircraft from the 434th ARW routinely deploy around the globe in support of the Air Force mission and U.S. strategic objectives.