321st AMOS participates in Ardent Sentry

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Robert Hicks
  • 621st Contingency Response Wing
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- When it comes to humanitarian aid around the globe, the United States and the 621st Contingency Response Wing is second to none. But what would happen if a 9.0 magnitude earthquake accrued on U.S soil?

U.S. Northern Command in conjunction with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and a number of other sponsors hosted Cascadia Rising 2016 and Ardent Sentry 2016, where they tested the ability of emergency operations in response to a Cascadia Subduction zone catastrophic earthquake and tsunami, in Washington and Oregon

Throughout the exercise U.S. Northern Command coordinated the overall DoD support and response to the Cascadia Rising scenario where more than 10 million people resided in the direct impact zone causing thousands of deaths and injuries. 

The 321st Air Mobility Operations Squadron provided support to the 601st Air Mobility Division, where they helped accomplish the command and control mission during exercise Ardent Sentry. 

Throughout the exercise the command and control experts tackled the challenging assignment of coordinating the simulated movement of thousands of evacuees, relief workers, supplies and patients to support disaster relief efforts. Ardent Sentry provided the training opportunity for the AMOS personnel to work with U.S. Transportation Command, joint partners and civilian authorities. 

“During the exercise we tracked 172 missions and provided landing slot times for 256 sorties while keeping leadership informed of the situations,” said Tech. Sgt. David Owens, 321st AMOS. “We gave constant updates on aircraft arrival and departures, when the medical teams were arriving on sight and if anyone needed more supplies.”

Members from the 321st AMOS was sent to the exercise to help provide 24 hour operations throughout the different scenarios, but they were also able to get some training that would benefit them when they returned to the CRW.

“Working in a different Air Mobility Division and seeing how they operate and the ability to use their systems that we may not use as much, is beneficial to us when we go on our real world missions in the CRW,” Owens said. “Getting use to different systems helps us stay proficient, because we never know which systems we will be using when we are tasked with a mission. In addition to that, the connections we make and the relationships that we build are invaluable to us during real world emergencies if they should arise.” 

Owens added they also had some new members at this exercise that have never used their systems or worked in this type of AOC before. It gave them the opportunity complete their upgrade training while also increasing their knowledge of how AOCs operate.

“Participating in this exercise was a real eye opening experience for me,” said Capt. Aaron Patterson, 321st AMOS tanker duty officer. “I’m more familiar with the warfighting side of operations. So I never had the opportunity to work with outside agencies such as Red Cross and FEMA and seeing how the humanitarian mission came together was remarkable.