Airmen participate in exercise Talisman Sabre in Australia

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ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam (AFNS) --  Airmen from the 36th Contingency Response Group here and the Royal Australian Air Force participated in Talisman Sabre 2011 recently at Williamson Airfield, Australia, to test their combined combat capabilities.

Talisman Sabre 2011 is an exercise designed to train U.S. and Australian forces to plan and conduct combined task force operations to improve combat readiness and interoperability on a variety of missions from conventional conflict to peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance efforts.

Commanders from both units see Talisman Sabre 2011 as an opportunity to explore their capabilities as a combined joint task force.

"It came down to basically understanding what each other's skills are and what we can do together," said Wing Cdr. Lee de Winton, the commander of the 381st Expeditionary Combat Support Squadron.

To learn as much as possible from each other, U.S. and Australian forces worked side-by-side to open a functional air operations center, assess air operations capabilities and sustain an operational base from the ground up.

"The thing we're looking at while we're here is how to mix and match our strengths and weaknesses," said Lt. Col. Ebe Toro, the 36th CRG commander.

Both leaders see the potential benefits of learning each other's strengths and weaknesses, and strive to correct what's not working well and highlight what is effective.

"I believe my squadron will come out with a better understanding on how to run an operations room for an air base because that's not something we do," de Winton said. "My squadron has more of a long-term sustainment capability, like showers, bathrooms and food. Colonel Toro's squadron isn't used to doing that part; they may be able to learn a little from us."

For three weeks, this combined effort will focus on security forces movement-to-contact training, airborne sustainment training, heavy equipment drops and retrieval of aerial assets, and the palletizing of equipment for forward deploying troops, officials said.

(Courtesy of the 36th Wing Public Affairs)