Samurai Readiness Inspection tests focused capabilities

by Tech. Sgt. Christopher Marasky
374th Airlift Wing Public Affairs

1/26/2015 - YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan -- Airmen from the 374th Airlift Wing here recently underwent a Samurai Readiness Inspection that tested the wing's capabilities in a unique way.

Instead of a week-long scenario that tested the whole spectrum of contingency responses, the Wing Inspection Team focused the inspection on a few large, specific capabilities of the wing.

"In the past, exercises were designed to take specific scenarios and react to them, performing all the required tasks concurrently in response," said Maj. Gregory Kantz, 374th Inspector General director of inspections.  "This year, we developed an inspection calendar based on evaluating the Wing's ability to perform specific tasks because we understand that you can never know all of the possible scenarios that could occur."

While the focused inspections still use generalized scenarios to set the stage for inspections, the new format didn't test the entire spectrum, allowing the WIT team to more specifically target their efforts, Kantz said.

"We've intentionally removed some capabilities from the exercise scenario so that we can focus on fewer at a time," he said.  "This allows us to inspect at a much deeper level than we've been able to in the past."

The new inspection method was driven the by the 374th Airlift Wing Commander Col. Douglas DeLaMater, who wanted to test large, base driven plans and capabilities.

"We've seen in the past that we can test a number of capabilities at one time in small doses, by sampling off the top," DeLaMater said.  "What I wanted to do was to have our WIT focus on some of our larger tasks and capabilities, and to exercise those in a robust way that allows the Wing to really test its ability to carry out those missions."

Testing the larger and more robust capability in the more intensive manner created unique challenges for the WIT, who had to change their mindset for creating the exercise parameters.

"Due to the challenges associated with evaluating the plans that we did, we had to think outside of the box," Kantz said.  "This inspection was unique because we developed two sets of objectives; one was testing the Wing's ability to respond at the tactical level, while the other was more of an academic exercise to provide greater understanding of the base plan and to see where that would slowly go."

With the Super Bowl fast approaching, Kantz likened the new inspection model to training to play football.

"You don't learn how to play football by throwing on some pads and scrimmaging every day," he said.  "You practice the required skill sets first, and after you're proficient in those tasks, then you start to put it all together and play games."

As the wing continues to focus on testing the larger, fundamental pieces of its mission and slowly builds towards larger, more robust inspections in the future, DeLaMater has been impressed by the results so far and the motivation of the Airmen.

"As we've focused on these larger pieces in depth, we've learned a great deal that we can apply to our future exercises," he said.  "I'm excited to move forward, building larger, more robust inspections that allow the Airmen of the 374th to continue to show why we're the best Wing in the Pacific."