Convoy course prepares Airmen for duty in Iraq

  • Published
  • By James Coburn
  • 37th Training Wing Public Affairs
LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFPN) --  Air Education and Training Command leaders saw the need for the Basic Combat Convoy Course for Airmen during a visit to Iraq in March, and 37th Training Wing experts here assembled the course in record time.

The first platoon of Airmen began the course June 7, training to relieve transportation Airmen currently in Iraq, said Master Sgt. Phil Coolberth, operations superintendent of the 342nd Training Squadron. He designed the three-week course and is its top enlisted leader.

A second platoon began its first week of training June 14. The goal is to have multiple three-platoon truck companies trained over a 13-week period, officials said.

The seven-days-a-week training actually lasts five weeks here. The Airmen get about two weeks of integration and onward-movement training as they go through the course, Sergeant Coolberth said.

Forty-one subject-matter experts from here, F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo.; Altus AFB, Okla.; and Air Force medical detachments nationwide serve as instructors. They are scheduled to work seven days a week, 18 hours a day during the course, said 1st Lt. Leo Martin, course commander from the 342nd TRS. The instructors will return to their regular jobs afterward.

“But it’s not about us,” Sergeant Coolberth said. He said the true heroes are the current battlefield Airmen who are supporting Soldiers as they drive trucks and man .50-caliber machine guns and M-249 automatic weapons mounted on either 5-ton cargo trucks or Humvees to run supply convoys “down mean streets, highways and byways of Iraq.”

“We are honored to even be considered to provide combat training for them,” Sergeant Coolberth said.

Gen. Donald G. Cook, AETC commander, and Maj. Gen. John F. Regni, 2nd Air Force commander, went to Iraq and “visited with these Air Force truck companies,” Sergeant Coolberth said. “They identified the need to train (transportation) battlefield Airmen, and they thought there was no better place to do that than where battlefield Airmen are trained, and that’s here at Lackland.”

Before the course began here, transportation Airmen went through basic convoy training at several Army posts, then additional training in Kuwait, Sergeant Coolberth said. Airmen completing the course here also will receive advanced training in Kuwait.

The first week of the course is here, where the Airmen receive intelligence briefings and live-fire training on the M-4 carbine, Lieutenant Martin said. They also receive combat simulator training and some initial vehicle training before going to nearby Camp Bullis for two weeks of weapons tactics and maneuver training.

Instruction includes multiple weapons systems and qualifications, specific Army communications systems, Global Positioning System navigation tools, combat lifesaver skills, tactical-vehicle qualifications and heavy emphasis in small unit leadership and troop-leading procedures. All aspects of the training are encased in combat convoy operations.

“If there are people out there searching for the perfect battlefield Airman, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a special operator on a horse calling in a B-52 [Stratofortress] strike,” said Sergeant Coolberth, who just returned from a month-long trip to Iraq along with two other instructors. “(The transportation Airmen) are involved in combat every single day, and they were former dispatchers and shuttle bus drivers on any Air Force base you can name.”

Sergeant Coolberth, who went on two convoys without incident, said the Airmen have traveled “well over a quarter-million miles on the road” without an Airman being killed in action.

“I met two (injured troops) over there who are recovering and waiting to get back on the road, and they are Airmen,” he said. “They make no bones about it. They’re proud of being in the Air Force, and they’re prouder executing that combat capability.

“(The Airmen) are extremely disciplined with focused awareness,” he said. “These are combat-hardened troops who have a rough job.”