Blue, silver AEFs get rotations back on track

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. A.J. Bosker
  • Air Force Print News
The Air Force is establishing two transitional air and space expeditionary forces, blue and silver, to put the deployment schedule back on track by March 2004 and to bring home deployed airmen as quickly as possible.

“We envision these two 120-day rotations filling the requirements of combatant commanders through spring when we can once again implement the normal steady-state AEF rotation,” said Maj. Gen. Timothy A. Peppe, special assistant for AEF matters at the Pentagon. “Additionally, we can expect some aircraft, aircrew and associated maintenance rotations outside these two transitional AEFs as we attempt to get them back to the normal schedule next spring.”

The blue AEF will be on call to fulfill mission requirements between July and November, Peppe said. Silver will be on call from November through March.

“The magnitude of the various combatant commanders’ continuing requirements throughout the world will dictate the number of airmen that we will have to deploy,” he said.

According to the general, airmen in AEFs 9/10 and 1/2 who were identified to support Operation Iraqi Freedom but did not deploy will likely be the most vulnerable to deploy with the blue or silver AEFs.

“Ideally, as we go through the process (of matching people to these AEFs), those that have been home the longest from a previous deployment will be matched to deploy first,” he said. “There may be some exceptions but I certainly hope not many. We will start with AEFs 9/10 and reach forward, as needed, to fill requirements.”

Airmen selected to support the blue AEF can expect to be notified of their deployment vulnerability over the next few weeks, he said.

“Most of the major command deployment taskings will be made by June 10 and airmen should receive their notifications soon after,” he said. “However, if a (major command) cannot fill a particular tasking, the AEF Center (at Langley Air Force Base, Va.) will have to source it to another (major command), which may delay some individual notifications.”

These transitional AEFs will allow the Air Force to get currently deployed airmen back home to their families, he said.

The combatant commanders are already releasing forces that were deployed, but those forces may need to remain in theater until the Air Force can fill those requirements and get enough assets in theater to bring them home, he explained.

“We would like to rotate people home more quickly but the bottom line is that it takes time to make this happen,” Peppe said. “But we are working the issue as hard and as fast as we can.”

“Airmen need to understand that the AEF is operating ‘as advertised,’” he said. “It was designed, from the start, to ‘flex,’ as necessary, to meet the widest range of combatant commander requirements. A transition period like the one we are experiencing now is normal as we move from one AEF operating environment -- crisis action -- to another -- steady state.”

“Since it’s beginning, I think the AEF has been a great success,” he said. “I don’t believe it was ever designed to handle a situation the size of the one we just had but I think it worked well. We were able to use it to timely ... identify people to meet the combatant commanders’ requirements.”

The Air Force was initially tasked to deploy approximately 120,000 active-duty, Guard and Reserve airmen, nearly a quarter of the service’s military people, to support operations in Iraq, Peppe said.

“However, we only needed to deploy approximately 50,000,” he explained. “That feat is a testament to the awesome work of our people and the AEF that was flexible enough to adapt to mission requirements and fill them as needed.”

Although Air Force leaders want airmen to be reunited with their families as quickly as possible, the service still must meet the needs of the combatant commanders to continue supporting operations throughout the world, he said.