Plan will get AEF back on track, fix ‘disparity’

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  • By Master Sgt. Scott Elliott
  • Air Force Print News
WASHINGTON --  While many deployed airmen are returning from Operation Iraqi Freedom to hero's welcomes, others deployed for as much as three times longer are still waiting to hear when they will go home.

What appears to some as an obvious disparity is actually a case of differing mission objectives, said the general in charge of air and space expeditionary force policy.

"The issue is, 'What job were these people sent to do,'" said Maj. Gen. Timothy A. Peppe, special assistant for AEF matters at the Pentagon. "Some of the people in OIF are already home because that operation went so well and so quickly that the combatant commander was able to release them.

"There is a difference for Operation Enduring Freedom folks. Those people are filling a requirement that hasn't changed. They will rotate when the Air Force has the combatant commanders’ requirements worldwide and develops the rotation to support them."

Besides manning requirements for OEF and OIF, a recent increase in Pacific Air Forces further strained the AEF rotation schedule. On top of that, Peppe said, the service is obligated to provide about 1,700 people to augment the staffs of component and combatant commanders worldwide.

"It's not just the people in Afghanistan," Peppe said. "Anyone the AEF supports will be caught up in this."

The Air Force uses the AEF's standard three-month rotation plan to bring deployment predictability to airmen and their families, but the operational demands of OIF and other requirements forced the service to break out of that mold. The plan is for the AEF deployment schedule to be back on track by early 2004, Peppe said.

To achieve that goal, the Air Force plans to piece together two transitional AEFs to meet deployment combatant commanders’ needs into 2004. Manning for these two AEFs will come from the ranks of those who have not deployed this cycle.

"We'll have to find 'green' unit type codes that are properly manned and equipped," Peppe said. "The AEF Center (at Langley Air Force Base, Va.) will work with the (major commands) to identify the personnel and equipment (that are) ready to deploy.

"Everyone who did not deploy needs to be on notice that we may need them to be a part of this rotation, or the next, as we get back to a more normal AEF rhythm," he said.

The numbers of people and types of equipment making up the new AEFs have yet to be determined by combatant commanders. The Air Force's goal is to have new mission requirements defined by the middle of May, Peppe said.

"The effort to define the requirements is ongoing, and we hope to wrap that up soon, because from the time requirements are set and the rotation begins is going to take 45 to 60 days," Peppe said.

As vital as the new mission requirements are to the rotation schedule, the general said patience is just as important.

"We can't send 100 aircraft over there to rotate everyone out at once," he said. "There are only so many aircraft available to do that type of work, so some people will rotate on day one, and some will rotate on day 15."

It is also important deployed airmen know they are not forgotten, Peppe said.

"There is nobody who wants to bring the troops home and start a rotation any more than the secretary of the Air Force and the Air Force chief of staff," he said. "They are acutely aware that those people have been frozen in place, and that some have been there six months or longer.

"We want to get on with the rotation," Peppe said, "but there is a mission at hand, and we will support that mission."