Silver Flag: Airmen 'deploy,' establish bare base

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Glory Smith
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany (USAFENS) --  Through rain, sleet, snow and sunshine — all four often within 10 minutes of each other — 24 Mildenhall Airmen joined other U.S. Air Forces in Europe and Air National Guard members in turning a barren plain of dirt into a base suitable for working, sleeping, eating and bathing.

The training for setting up a bare base, an element of the Air Force’s core competency of rapid global mobility, was part of Silver Flag at Ramstein Air Base, Germany , Feb. 7 to 16.

“It’s phenomenal that within less than a day, about 200 people from 10 different units, who haven’t even worked together before, set up this base,” said Maj. Scott Chambers, 148th Fighter Wing, Minnesota Air National Guard, commander for the deployment exercise.

Fourteen of the Mildenhall members who took part in Silver Flag came from the 100th Services Squadron, and 12 of them are tasked to deploy in Air Expeditionary Force 5/6, scheduled from May to August.

“Although we won’t be putting up tents in the snow when we go to the desert, it helped in the sense that you may not know what obstacles you may have to overcome,” said Senior Master Sgt. Tom Harrison, 100th SVS combat support superintendent. “Flexibility and good attitudes were displayed at Silver Flag, which are key to deployment.”

The senior master sergeant said he feels the training is important for several reasons, including that it stresses the importance of working as a team that’s moving in the same direction and the importance of getting quick and accurate information. He said it also provided a good opportunity to work with the Guard and learn how they operate.

Staff Sgt. Ronald Schutte, 141st Air Refueling Wing, Washington Air National Guard, services, said he’s been training for 19 years and has never participated in laying down a bare base before this exercise.

“I leave soon for my first real deployment,” he said, “and this experience has made me much more prepared to go.

“I’m better prepared to handle ‘adverse’ conditions,” he joked, referencing the opportunity to train in four seasons of weather. “It’s good training,” he said.

In fact, one of Sergeant Schutte’s fellow services Airmen from RAF Mildenhall who has deployed before said this training is more challenging than any of his “real-world” deployments.

“This bed-down was a lot rougher than a deployment,” said Airman 1st Class Torey Riley, 100th SVS, adding that since this training, he’s even more eager and prepared to deploy again.

Before the four days of bare-base deployment, which concluded Silver Flag’s 10 days of training, the 184 students began with classroom and hands-on instruction.

The majority of students attended functional track-specific training for the initial days, while 25 officers and enlisted members attended the expeditionary leadership program.

At the ELP, students learned to integrate deployable skill sets and received training across the spectrum of pre-deployment, deployment and post-deployment in a bare-base environment.

The ELP is important to “fine-tune” deployment skills, said Maj. Kristin Uchimura, Silver Flag director of operations for the 38th Combat Support Center. “The future of our Air Force is expeditionary in nature.

“ELP also instills the art of leadership to take care of the troops and practice sound decision making, problem solving and critical thinking,” said Major Uchimura.

The Silver Flag deployment team included members from 22 functional tracks, including civil engineering, services, communications, logistics readiness, personnel, finance, contracting, public affairs, chapel, legal and explosive ordinance disposal, to name a few.

They came from RAFs Mildenhall and Alconbury; Aviano Air Base, Italy; Incirlik Air Base, Turkey; Ramstein AB; the Minnesota and Washington Air National Guards, from Duluth, Minn., and Fairchild Air Force Base, Ore., respectively. Two officers from the Romanian air force also participated.

Ramstein AB hosts Silver Flag seven to eight times each year.