Back on track: Air Force returning to normal AEF rotations

After two years of operating in a crisis environment supporting the global war on terrorism and Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Air Force is in the process of transitioning back to a steady state of operations and a normal schedule of air and space expeditionary force rotations.

To make this transition and put the deployment schedule back on track by March 2004, the service established two transitional AEF forces, blue and silver.

"The Air Force plans to get AEF rotational deployments back on schedule through the process of having the blue and silver rotations, with the ultimate goal to resume cycle four AEFs 7/8 on March 1, 2004," said Tony Tassone, director of the AEF Cell at Headquarters Air Force Reserve Command, Robins Air Force Base, Ga. "This will allow the Air Force to draw down the buildup of forces required to conduct Operation Iraqi Freedom and allow those airmen to reconstitute, receive training and spend time with their families before being called on once again."

The blue AEF went on call to fulfill mission requirements in July and will be available until November, when the silver AEF will begin. People supporting the silver AEF will be on call until March, when regular AEF rotations are scheduled to commence.

Tassone said more than 2,300 reservists from 12 units are on duty supporting the blue AEF. Some of these people--fighter pilots and maintenance crews, rescue specialists, and medical professionals, for example--are holdovers who were initially deployed to support Iraqi Freedom. A similar number of reservists from 12 other units will be required for the silver AEF.

Reservists filling the rotations are a combination of volunteers and mobilized personnel who are augmenting active-duty airmen.

Tassone said the Reserve is still looking for volunteers to fill two-week commitments for the silver rotation at U.S. Air Forces in Europe bases and longer rotations, up to 120 days, in Iraq and at other Central Command operating locations. The more people who volunteer, the less AFRC will have to rely on mobilizations to fulfill its commitments.

"This is actually a continuation of the command's process prior to and during the crisis, which is to fill Air Force AEF requirements with volunteers on a two-week basis wherever possible," Tassone said. "If theater commanders do not want two-week rotations, we will continue to process help wanted ads across the command to fulfill longer rotational requirements."

Prior to Sept. 11, 2001, AFRC was filling 110 requirements per AEF pair. That number has increased to more than 65 two-week requirements and around 600 long-term requirements filled by volunteers and more than 1,000 total requirements filled by mobilized reservists during the blue rotation.

Even with the increased number of taskings, Tassone said that, to date, the command is not short of volunteers.

"The reserve command is expecting a decrease in the number of mobilized reservists with a return to volunteerism to meet the AEF deployment requirements of the Air Force," he said.

Tassone also said AFRC is consciously trying to schedule around those units that have been recently demobilized unless there are people still looking for employment.

"The command is trying to keep a human concern during this period of demobilization by finding gainful employment for those reservists who still wish to serve their country," Tassone said.

As the Air Force gets closer to March and a normal AEF schedule, Tassone said the Reserve will try to steer clear of those people within units who were just demobilized. However, it will not exclude the entire unit. For instance, he said if the security forces squadron within a particular wing was activated and the civil engineer squadron wasn't, the cops would be left alone while the engineers would be asked to provide volunteers for any command AEF requirements.

"Airmen need to understand that the AEF is operating 'as advertised,'" said Maj. Gen. Timothy A. Peppe, special assistant for AEF matters at the Pentagon. "It was designed, from the start, to 'flex,' as necessary, to meet the widest range of combatant commander requirements. A transition period like the one we are experiencing now is normal as we move from one AEF operating environment--crisis action--to another--steady state.

"Since its beginning, I think the AEF has been a great success. I don't believe it was ever designed to handle a situation the size of the one we just had, but I think it worked well."

(Some information for this article was taken from an Air Force Print News story written by Staff Sgt. A.J. Bosker.)

COPYRIGHT 2003 Air Force Reserves
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group