Members of the 62nd Airlift Wing said their goodbyes to friends and families before deploying in support of U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command, and U.S. Africa Command operations Sept. 26-27. This deployment is JB Lewis McChord's first implementation of the new Mobility Air Force Force Generation model.
The new MAFFORGEN model aims to reconstitute Air Mobility Command's manpower, aircraft, and equipment into force elements that train, deploy, and recover as cohesive units throughout each phase of the cycle. The former model used a crowdsourcing method that often meant deploying individual Airmen separate from their teams, on short notice.
"The six-month deployment cycles are not new to AMC; however, this will be the first iteration for the C-17 (Globemaster III) community," said Lt. Col. Nicholas Disney, 8th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron commander. "MAFFORGEN is in direct correlation with the Agile Combat Employment concept that we can go anywhere anytime in support of any geographic combatant command … and very much aligns the C-17 community more closely with the rest of the Air Force's deployment model."
Within the new model are four distinct phases: reset, prepare, ready, and available to commit. Phase one, reset, gives time for Airmen to reintegrate with families, recoup, take post-deployment leave and get back to basic proficiency. Phase two, prepare, gives the squadron the opportunity to enhance unit proficiency by completing advanced upgrade training and completing a certification event that integrates operations support agencies and joint partners.
"We executed our MAFFORGEN certification event, Rainier War 22A, with 161 Airmen ... split between two geographically separated locations and spent 10 days employing operations in a high intensity, contested, degraded, and operationally limited environment," said Senior Master Sgt. Ryan Stark, 8th Airlift Squadron superintendent.
These events validated the squadrons resourcefulness, experience, and capability to perform the tasks required in the ready and available phases, Disney said.
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