KUNSAN AIR BASE, South Korea (AFNS) -- Running from July 21-23, exercise Beverly Sentinel 26-4 demonstrated the 8th Fighter Wing’s commitment to readiness and force preparedness. Through intense exercise scenarios, Wolf Pack Airmen sharpened their specialized skills and practiced critical decision making under pressure, maintaining an operational tempo required to sustain combat operations in a contested environment.
During Beverly Sentinel 26-4, Wolf Pack Airmen focused on Ability to Survive and Operate training scenarios, an essential component toward exercising the 8th Fighter Wing's ability to defend Kunsan Air Base and sustain mission critical operations.
“Ensuring operational continuity in a contested environment is not optional,” said U.S. Air Force Col. John “Wolf” DeLion, 8th Fighter Wing commander. “By implementing these realistic training scenarios, we enhance the resilience and readiness required of our members to project combat airpower and execute the Wolf Pack mission under any conditions.”
Each Wolf Pack unit bolstered mission-essential skills while refining life-saving techniques and strategies, including Tactical Combat Casualty Care, opposition force response, post-attack reconnaissance and emergency response procedures.
U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Dylan Hayes, an 8th Security Forces Squadron base defense operations center operator, was one of many Airmen during the exercise who understands the value of ATSO training for the Wolf Pack.
“Continuous, high-tempo training builds strong muscle memory that you can fall back on when stress and pressure begin to set in,” said Hayes. “This exercise prepares individual Airmen at Kunsan for real-world combat by forcing them to survive, operate and defend the installation under simulated, high-intensity enemy attacks.”
Hayes was one of four 8th SFS members assigned to patrol the installation inside a Humvee, providing surveillance and force response measures ranging from simulated attacks at ground level with opposing forces and from above with unmanned aircraft systems.
Additionally, the exercise demonstrated joint force operations by showcasing sister services working side by side to defend the base, integrating their capabilities into a unified, layered defense against potential threats.
“My unit and the 8th Civil Engineer Squadron emergency management flight work on airfields and both can be attacked by the enemy simultaneously,” said U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Jesus Duran, a Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear defense specialist attached to the Marine Wing Support Squadron 171, Iwakuni, Japan. “Practicing how to respond to said attacks together definitely teaches us how each other operates and responds to these emergencies.”
Duran participated in Beverly Sentinel 26-4 as the U.S. Marine Corps CBRN Cell counterpart for Kunsan’s Emergency Operations Center, reporting potential hazards in response to simulated threats, providing recommended courses of action to base leaders, and relaying that information to ground CBRN teams to execute.
“How the Airmen have dedicated CBRN teams and equipment bags at the ready - it taught me how to be more efficient, and I want to bring this system back to my Marines,” said Duran. “Bringing more branches together to train can only strengthen our capability as a military whole.”
Integrating with sister services during exercises such as Beverly Sentinel 26-4 validates ATSO training as not an individual task, but a joint imperative required to sustain combat operations under pressure.
As Beverly Sentinel 26-4 concludes, that readiness under pressure remains a key theme for the Wolf Pack, weaving its way through the everyday lives of Kunsan Air Base’s service members while bolstering the 8th Fighter Wing’s “Fight Tonight” posture.
“We execute these exercises routinely to stress-test our Airmen and systems, identifying the friction points, and adapting our tactics with the lessons we learned,” said DeLion. “We stress-test our processes in peacetime, to be ready when called upon."