15th AMOS hosts HOMEPLATE exercise

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Charles Rivezzo
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  In today's Air Force, the daunting assignment of providing theater-level commanders the ability to optimize the use of scarce air mobility resources through a rapidly deployable team rests upon the shoulders of only a handful of units -air mobility operations squadrons.

Led by the 15th AMOS stationed at Travis, multiple AMOS units from across the service participated in a command-and-control exercise from July 21 to 25 in preparation for the massive Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercises set to take place in upcoming weeks.

Known as a HOMEPLATE exercise, the weeklong local operation simulated the establishment and operating capability of a theater Air and Space Operations Center in response to a Korean Peninsula scenario.

Approximately six units including the 15th and 349th AMOS from Travis, the 21st and 514th AMOS based out of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, the 613th Air Operations Center based out of Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii, as well as the 607th Air Mobility Division based out of Osan Air Base, South Korea, participated in the exercise.

The overarching concept behind the exercise was to build upon the interworking relationships between each of the squadrons, executing the contingency response philosophy of "train with who you are going to go out the door with."

"The scope of the AMOS mission is changing," said Lt. Col. Kevin Griswold, 21st AMOS commander. "Because of budget constraints, we no longer can mobilize as a whole unit and fill the requirements placed upon us by combatant commanders. Nowadays, we see our teams being pieced together from multiple units.

"We recognize that we may be sitting across from individuals from different Guard and Reserve AMOSes when we are out in a regional air operations center. This kind of training gives us an opportunity to train with each other in a controlled environment, so that we are familiar with whom we are working with in a real-time operation across the globe."

Lt. Col. Edwin Markie Jr., 15th AMOS commander, echoed this sentiment.

"When go out on the road for an exercise or, more importantly, when we do this real world, I want to have trained and qualified individuals," he said. "When we conduct exercises like this we get to look each other in the eyes and know where we are all coming from. We learn to mesh seamlessly together because we have all have a common operating picture."