Airmen hone contingency skills at Silver Flag

  • Published
  • By Richard Salomon
  • Air Force Personnel Center Public Affairs
RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFNS) --  A handful of Airmen scan their checklists to make sure their mobility bags and other essentials are in order, while others thumb through their Airman's Manuals to bone up on proper chemical warfare procedures. 

The Airmen are in a wooded 1,200 acre site at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., and this is part of an exercise to give Airmen an experience of deploying away from the rest of the world.

This deployment scenario, called Silver Flag, is played out about 35 times a year at Tyndall AFB and about six times a year each at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, and Kadena AB, Japan. At Tyndall AFB, about 7,600 students a year descend on the remote site for a week to improve their combat leadership skills and to receive the necessary training to open, establish and sustain a forward operating base.

Silver Flag provides contingency training where combat support teams from various career fields can train, interact and conduct training operations in a realistic environment. These career fields include civil engineering, services, finance, communications, contracting and personnel, also called Personnel Support for Contingency Operations.

Silver Flag's PERSCO team, which is usually made up of five to nine personnellists and one or two manpower professionals, are the first to arrive, so they can take care of their No. 1 priority: accountability.

"Our motto is 'first in, last out,'" said Master Sgt. Charlie Carr, the NCO in charge of PERSCO/manpower training and one of the team's three instructors. "The PERSCO team needs to be on site early so they can account for all the students. In the field, it's vital for the combatant commanders to know how strong their units are and how those numbers affect readiness."

At deployed locations, PERSCO teams verify who is in the field by name, Air Force specialty code, grade, gender and other factors. At any given time, there are more than 80 PERSCO teams operating 24/7 in deployed environments worldwide.

Before setting foot on the exercise site, PERSCO team members pick up their A (general support) and C (chemical defense) mobility bags at their home bases. The A-bag consists of a helmet, web belt, body armor, sleeping bag, canteen kit, mess kit and other support items. The C bag includes a protective mask, mask filters, gloves, hood, boots, detection papers and other chemical defense items.

"From the start, their minds are focused on deploying, just as if they were going to Iraq or Afghanistan," said Staff Sgt. Benito Colon Jr., a PERSCO/manpower instructor. "Even though home stations are required to conduct monthly PERSCO training, the goal here is to give the students the opportunity to execute those skills."

In 2007, about 35 percent of PERSCO Airmen who deployed to operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom attended Silver Flag training. Based on posturing in the air and space expeditionary force cycle, Air Staff officials identify the major commands that will be tasked for deployments, and they in turn identify which bases are going to send Airmen to Silver Flag.

The readiness operations branch, at the Air Force Personnel Center's Air and Space Expeditionary Force and Personnel Operations Directorate, oversees Silver Flag's PERSCO piece for Tyndall AFB by working the funding issues, reporting instructions and special experience identifiers to make sure the available Airmen are qualified to go. The branch is also responsible for scheduling and sending PERSCO Airmen to Kadena and Ramstein air bases.

"We work with the various bases and individuals who are going to Silver Flag and make sure they have everything in order," said Master Sgt. John Henderson, the readiness operations branch superintendent. "The goal is to make sure those who are postured to deploy, have the first opportunity to attend this valuable training." 

Classroom topics also cover how basic contingency operations are set up in the areas of responsibility, various unit type codes, chemical warfare, different PERSCO team arrangements, mission oriented protective postures, instructions on how to communicate with commanders on PERSCO matters and casualty reporting.

"That's one of our biggest blocks and we cover all types of casualties, such as duty status-whereabouts unknown, deceased, missing, ill and injured," Sergeant Carr said. "They practice doing different types of casualty messages and how to effectively communicate with the proper authorities."

Casualty reports provide vital information to the Air Force Casualty Office at AFPC and to the Red Cross, so family members are immediately notified if a tragedy occurs.

In the area of responsibility, PERSCO teams are also responsible for inprocessing and outprocessing personnel, re-enlistments, travel and emergency leave requests, duty status reports and more. Duty status reports are an essential tool that allows commanders to identify names, strength accountability and availability of personnel.

"We also run them through the various PERSCO checklists to get them ready for when they actually do deploy," Sergeant Carr said. "They're here to hone their skills and reinforce what they have learned at their home unit, so we try to keep things loose, yet challenging and realistic."

PERSCO's expeditionary mission is ongoing at Silver Flag. When one team finishes and goes home, another one arrives and is just beginning.

"There're always new Airmen we need to train, to get ready for when they do deploy -- any time, any place," Sergeant Carr said. 

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