Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force David Flosi and 57 senior enlisted leaders from across the Air Force trained on mission command employment during a six-day event between Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, and Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands, Oct. 20-25.
The training demonstrated the importance of mission command, which empowers Airmen to operate in decentralized, uncertain, complex, and rapidly changing environments through understanding commander's intent, trust, shared awareness, and understanding of strategic mission intentions.
Senior enlisted leaders gained a comprehensive understanding of what Airmen are experiencing and executing in the Indo-Pacific region.
"We need to be thinking about mission command & experiencing it firsthand so we can relay that to our Airmen who are doing the mission," said Chief Master Sgt. Sevin Balkuvvar, senior advisor to the CMSAF.
The training is an evolution from the annual Senior Enlisted Leader Summit to better align with Department of the Air Force efforts to reoptimize for Great Power Competition.
To stress the senior enlisted leaders' role in executing mission command, the participants started with a pre-deployment line scenario in Hawaii. After processing through a short-notice deployment order, the chief master sergeants flew 18 hours to Andersen Air Force Base, underscoring how time would be a scarce commodity in a real-life scenario.
Once they landed, the senior enlisted leaders were welcomed to Guam and stayed in field conditions.
The participants also transited to Tinian, where they completed a tour of historic sites and the in-progress revitalization of World War II airfields as they met with the 513 Expeditionary Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operations Repair Squadron Engineers Squadron.
Airfield restoration will be key to ensuring the success of future operations.
"The overall outcome is to increase our capabilities in this theater," said Brig. Gen. Michael Zuhlsdorf, Pacific Air Forces director of logistics, engineering and force protection at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. "We know that the success of these [hub-and-spokes] operations is going to be largely on the backs our enlisted air force and those young company grade officers that are going to lead us through these hub and spokes as we disperse out, flush out and come back together to be able to put power in a focused area where we need to in the future."
While visiting Guam and Tinian, the senior enlisted leaders exercised operations in a mock contested environment to gain a comprehensive understanding of what exactly Airmen who are stationed or deployed in the Indo-Pacific are expected to execute.
"When the chief master sergeants are informing these MAJCOM commanders and combatant commanders in their decision-making process, it's important that they understand what the Airmen deal with day-to-day," said Chief Master Sgt. Merissa Schmidt, 36th Operations Group senior enlisted leader.
As part of the training, the senior enlisted leaders were tasked with assembling a spoke operation and establishing communication with higher echelons, while navigating simulated attacks from adversaries while in austere conditions.
The final training day consisted of briefs by various leaders from the 36th Wing and Guam Air National Guard. After the briefings, the senior enlisted leaders toured various units across the installation, including Andersen's munitions sites.
"The first and foremost thing I've gotten out of this training is seeing just how amazing our Airmen are," said Chief Master Sgt. Heath Tempel, senior enlisted leader of the Alaskan North American Aerospace Defense Command Region, Alaskan Command, and the command chief master sergeant of Eleventh Air Force. "To coordinate this effort across four different wings to have this come together, they've exceeded all expectations."
