Honorary commanders experience operations mission Published Sept. 15, 2016 By Staff Sgt. Charles Rivezzo 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – Travis Air Force Base hosted an immersion tour for 41 honorary commanders Sept. 9, where they were provided first-hand experience on multiple facets of the wing’s operational group during their quarterly HCC group tour. The Honorary Commanders Program allows professionals from a variety of areas to partner with individual commanders to strengthen and foster the relationship between Travis and the local community. The program serves to enhance civic appreciation of the need and value of the Air Force, to maximize opportunities to share the Air Force story and communicate that the Air Force and sister service partner leaders share mutual interests, concerns and challenges with civilian stakeholders. As part of the program, Travis hosts quarterly immersion tours where a unit or specific mission-set is highlighted in order to help better inform honorary commanders. During the group’s visit of the 60th Operations Group, they toured several facilities to include the air traffic control tower and the radar and approach control center. They also had the opportunity to meet with and learn from survival, evasion, resistance and escape specialists as well as don aircrew body armor and night vision goggles with members from aircrew flight equipment. Lastly, each honorary commander had the opportunity to pilot one of the 60th Air Mobility Wing’s three airframes in an aircraft simulator, providing them a hands-on and realistic experience of piloting a military aircraft. “During our first day as an Honorary Commander, Col. (Joel) Jackson spoke about one of the responsibilities of Travis Air Force Base is to train Airmen so that they are ready to do their jobs when called upon,” said Dr. Sheila McCabe, Farifield-Suisun Unified School District executive director of administrative services and community engagement. “The tour on Friday really re-enforced that concept. I was in awe of the work taking place to train and prepare our service men and women.” The vast majority of those serving in the Honorary Commanders Program have little to no prior military experience. For many, the program serves as an opportunity to interact and witness the behind the scenes efforts needed to execute the installation’s rapid global mobility mission-set. “For many years, when I thought about Travis Air Force Base, I would think about the men and women who were taking supplies, people, equipment and fuel to support missions around the world,” said McCabe. “This tour gave me a greater appreciate for the amount of training that goes into making those certain missions are carried out successfully." Retired Lt. Col. Mike Reagan, a Travis Regional Armed Forces Committee executive committee member, said the visit left many both impressed and inspired. “It was an excellent orientation to many of the functions of the 60th and 349th Operations Group,” he said. “The theme of seeing what goes into an aircraft mission; weather, base operations, passenger processing and aircrew equipment as well as the focus on the ongoing training capacity was a model for how these events should be done in the future. “I spoke to many of the non-prior military HCC and civic leader, they were uniformly both impressed and inspired.”