Niagara reservists complete Silver Flag

by Tech. Sgt. Andrew Caya
914th Airlift Wing Public Affairs

5/14/2014 - NIAGARA FALLS AIR RESERVE STATION, N.Y. -- Airmen from the 914th Force Support Squadron honed their bare base skills during a recent deployment to Silver Flag at Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Georgia.

During the week-long course, Airmen formed a Personnel Support for Contingency Operations team, or PERSCO,  to build and maintain bare-base operations at mock forward-deployed locations.

Fourteen Airmen from active duty, Guard and reserve components honed a variety of specialty-related skills, said Chief Master Sgt. Antonio Borrelli, 914th FSS superintendent .

"It worked out quite well," added Borrelli.

Services members received additional training on providing food service, mortuary affairs and lodging under simulated wartime conditions, while PERSCO members received training on accounting for deployed forces, processing casualty reports and conducting personnel sustainment actions.

It's more of a refresher course than anything, said Borrelli. The Airmen should be doing all this training at home-station, and Silver Flag is a culmination to ensure home station training is on par with the Air Force standard.

PERSCO Specialist Senior Airman Jennifer Bright was part of a team of four 914th personnel specialists who completed the training.

The first two days were classroom instruction, followed by a written test on the third day. The fourth day was the preparation for the exercise followed by a day-long exercise and graduation, said Bright.

The living conditions were very humbling, said Bright. The duration of the training was setup like a genuine deployed location.

Silver Flag was very important because there are AFSC aspects the junior Airmen need to focus their training on, said Bright, and mentioned that during Silver Flag the Airmen worked on tasking that senior enlisted usually handled back at home station.

"It was really good training," said Bright. "I learned a lot."