15th AMOS returns from combat employment readiness exercise

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Carrie M. Smart
  • 15th Air Mobility Operations Squadron
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  The 15th Air Mobility Operations Squadron recently returned from one of U.S. Forces Korea's largest annual combined warfighting exercises, Key Resolve 2008. This exercise, which replaced the former Reception, Staging, Onward Movement, and Integration exercise, is critical to ensuring peace and stability throughout the Pacific Command theater by maintaining a strong relationship between Republic of Korea Airmen and the Airmen at Travis.

Key Resolve is an annual "operational-level" ROK-U.S. training exercise held peninsula-wide to ensure readiness of air, space and cyberspace operations in the Korean theater.

The purpose of the exercise is to demonstrate coalition resolve in supporting South Korea against external aggression while improving Korean and U.S. combat readiness and joint/combined interoperability.

More than 70 personnel from the 15th AMOS as well as select members from the 615th Contingency Response Wing, 349th Airlift Control Flight, 21st AMOS at McGuire Air Force Base, N.J., and Headquarters Air Mobility Command augmented the 607th Air and Space Operations Center Air Mobility Division at Osan Air Base, South Korea.

The AMD mission is to safely plan and execute mobility operations throughout the theater. This includes airlift, air refueling, aeromedical evacuation and contingency response operations such as opening airbases across the peninsula. The AMD planned 18, 000 airlift and tanker missions and 27,000 aeromedical evacuations during this exercise.

Nearly a year of planning went into preparing for Key Resolve. The exercise brought together dozens of Air Force Specialty Codes, defining training objectives and synchronizing the mobilization of personnel from units across the nation. The exercise also initiated the transfer of Operational Control to the ROK in April 2012. U.S. Airmen focused on training their ROK counterparts in preparation for this transition.

"Key Resolve enables air mobility warriors to train side-by-side and build a strong partnership with our Korean counterparts," said Lt. Col. Laura Lenderman, 15th AMOS commander. "Our continued support to PACOM and the Korean peninsula is absolutely essential to the stability of the region and deterring threats across the globe."