OVER THE MARIANA ISLANDS — The airmen have five seconds.
Poised next to almost three tons of cargo — plastic barrels of water — these loadmasters aboard a C-17 airlifter know the stakes. In the event that they airdrop the valuable supplies too early, the cargo leads to the Pacific Ocean. Too late? Same result.
When the countdown hits zero, the barrels zip down the open ramp and dip off the sting. White parachutes unfurl and the cargo sails to its destination: a mud strip on the sting of Tinian, the tiny island outpost 100 miles north of Guam.
This practice run is an element of an even bigger test, a race with higher stakes: How quickly could the Air Force reply to a Chinese attack on Taiwan?
“We stand united with our partners and allies for a free and open Indo-Pacific,” said Gen. Mike Minihan, the Air Force’s top mobility officer. “We’re ready, we’re integrated … and we will handle any mission set that our civilian leaders select for us to perform.”
The Pentagon views China as America’s top competitor in military strength, technology development and global influence. Defense leaders are also wary of Beijing’s growing aggression toward Taiwan, the democratically self-governed island that maintains military and trade ties with america but is claimed by China.
That’s why, for the primary time, the U.S. Air Force’s massive biennial training exercise for airlift and aerial refueling brought together around 3,000 troops and 70 mobility aircraft, reminiscent of the C-130 and A400 airlifters and the KC-46 tanker, from america and 6 allies to the Pacific.
For 2 weeks in July, the training, often known as Mobility Guardian, helped solidify the usage of the so-called “Second Island Chain” — the string of archipelagos from Japan to the Mariana Islands to Indonesia — as a key logistics hub for the U.S. and its allies in a future war.
It was a test of several crucial questions: How quickly can the Air Force get there? What and who does it must bring? And may the airmen do all of it themselves?
The answers began greater than 8,000 miles away in Charleston, South Carolina.
‘Back to the long run’
On a scorching, muggy morning at Joint Base Charleston July 3, Air Force Times began an exclusive 10-day trip with Air Mobility Command to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam.
Airmen milled across the Installation Deployment Readiness Center, a one-stop shop for last-minute paperwork checks, briefings and vaccinations before shipping overseas.
They were preparing to deploy because the 437th Air Expeditionary Wing, the unit that may lead Mobility Guardian from a makeshift headquarters at Andersen. Their goal was to bring to life the Air Force’s vision of a speedier, more holistic approach to combat tours.
It marks a fundamental shift in how the Air Force thinks about fighting within the Pacific.
For the past 20 years, the war on terrorism has relied on a stream of airmen who cycle through well-established bases world wide. Sometimes that requires deploying a whole squadron for one mission; other times, airmen are tapped piecemeal from different squadrons or bases to fill open jobs overseas.
Now airmen who work under the identical wing at home will deploy together as one team, with a built-in air staff to administer missions and morale. Together with more predictable schedules and ample training, the Air Force hopes the brand new approach will result in more capable expeditionary units that may function away from brick-and-mortar bases.
“[U.S. Central Command], quite frankly, has created some bad habits with how we employ our assets,” said Lt. Col. Jake Parker, Mobility Guardian’s lead planner. “We’ve a really robust infrastructure, and we got so reliant on that, that now we don’t have the flexibility to pivot from one place to the following.”
For 437th Operations Group commander Col. Carlos Berdecía, Mobility Guardian was a probability to tackle recent challenges after the U.S. military’s tumultuous 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“Joint Base Charleston had a hangover from [Operation Allies Refuge], because we did so well. We were the last ones on the bottom,” said Berdecía, a profession C-17 Globemaster III pilot who served as expeditionary wing commander for the exercise. “There needed to be something to say, ‘I would like to give attention to what’s next.’ ”
Revamping how the Air Force goes to war means reviving practices like deployment lines that fell by the wayside throughout the war on terrorism — and before today’s youngest airmen were born.
“It’s almost back to the long run,” Berdecía said. “There’s some knowledge that hasn’t been retained. Breaking open [regulations] that haven’t been checked out, ensuring we’re doing things by the book, is de facto necessary. That muscle memory isn’t necessarily there, so we’re attempting to construct that right away.”
Outside the deployment center, tan and olive luggage sure for Guam and Australia lined the parking zone and piled up on trucks; a staffer handed out first-aid supplies within the lobby.
Airmen filed inside for briefings on what lay ahead. Mobility Guardian is a possibility to indicate the world what the U.S. and its allies can do, they were told, so take it seriously. Be respectful to locals as Guam recovers from Typhoon Mawar, the strongest storm to hit the U.S. territory since 2002.
And so they were warned: Guam is a preferred destination for Chinese intelligence officers, so be wary of strangers in bars and the questions they ask. For added protection, troops were told to show off geolocation services on their devices during the exercise.
Then airmen headed down the hallway to a counter where administrators ensured their paperwork was so as, from survival training certificates to medical documents, and picked up printed deployment orders and dog tags.
Master Sgt. Justin Braden, a combat communications specialist, said it was a probability to interact with the airmen, soldiers and Marines who would depend on that equipment for their very own training across the region.
“We’re alleged to go along with generators and nothing, and arrange initial comms,” Braden said aboard a C-17 Globemaster III because it prepared to depart Charleston for Australia. “We’re attending to do more of what we’re alleged to be doing … once you go on deployment.”
Getting there
The exercise formally kicked off July 5 with certainly one of its hardest challenges: rushing dozens of planes and 1000’s of airmen to the Pacific in record time.
Air Force leaders have said that deploying in a matter of hours or days by air, slightly than weeks or months by sea, can deter Chinese and North Korean aggression within the region. It also gives commanders more options to reply if a crisis erupts.
“Nobody wants a conflict. We’re doing this to indicate our adversary that we would like peace in [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command] and we will all exist here together,” said Lt. Col. Jason Walker, 61st Expeditionary Airlift Squadron commander. “But that is the road. … Don’t cross it.”
The 8,100-mile trek from South Carolina to Guam starts with a 10-hour flight to Honolulu, plus one other seven hours to the southernmost point within the North Pacific. Attending to Japan or Australia takes even longer.
For comparison, the journey is farther than Afghanistan, and the Pacific lacks the network of enormous, U.S.-run bases across Europe and the Middle East where airmen are used to stopping for sleep and equipment. And though Air Mobility Command usually travels across the Pacific, those flights are scheduled farther prematurely and with fewer planes directly.
Most airmen made the trip in three or 4 days; all reached their destination inside every week or so. Minihan called the final result a “game changer.”
Walker said his airmen flew from Arkansas to Guam in 38 hours, and to the Philippines in 42 hours — a primary for Little Rock Air Force Base’s C-130s, which fly lower and slower than larger cargo jets. One British airman boasted that the Royal Air Force was capable of reach the Pacific in under 21 hours.
It was made possible by maintainers who stretched their limits and tackled last-minute problems; schedulers who navigated the puzzle of aircraft and crew availability, cargo and passengers, destinations and timing; and pilots who worked in shifts between naps at the back of the aircraft.
Still, crews faced loads of hiccups. Some were turned away from Australia because of bureaucratic complications; others were slowed by weather, broken jets, disconnects when recent crews weren’t able to go, or small gas tanks that required frequent refueling.
C-17 maintainers from Travis AFB in California were stuck in Hawaii when their jet broke en path to Guam, said Master Sgt. David Moser, a Globemaster III maintenance superintendent. One other jet did reach Andersen, but airmen couldn’t offload their equipment or personal belongings due to confusion over biosecurity inspections. Then the team fell several hours behind schedule because jet fuel trucks were slow to reach and carried less gas than those at Travis.
“It’s what Gen. Minihan wants … to see,” Moser said. “How do you’re employed once you’re … wired?”
“We’d like to see how we fail when it fails, in order that way, when real-world situations do arise … we may be more proactive,” he said.
Long flights presented a possibility for Air Mobility Command to check easy methods to safely handle extensive missions across several time zones.
For Mobility Guardian, the command allowed its crews to take stimulants like Modafinil or sleeping pills to manage their circadian rhythm. “Go” and “no-go” pills are commonly utilized in the combat and intelligence communities but have remained off-limits for mobility pilots.
“A whole lot of the crews reported feeling higher than expected once we came,” said Walker, who said he opted for sleep and caffeine slightly than drugs. “I wouldn’t do it again tomorrow. … But it surely definitely wasn’t as bad as we thought it will be.”
Within the fight
On the bottom in Guam, one other experiment was unfolding.
The Air Force has long relied on the remaining of the U.S. military to establish its bases of operations world wide. Now Air Mobility Command desires to change into the service’s own “maneuver force” that opens airfields and launches flight operations.
For Mobility Guardian, that job fell to the 621st Contingency Response Group. The Air Force’s in-house rapid-reaction teams concentrate on clearing the way in which for air operations and directing forces in austere locations.
A team of 88 contingency response airmen began arriving in Guam on July 3, where they marshaled themselves into the airfield and set to work constructing the exercise’s deployed headquarters on the far fringe of the flightline at Andersen AFB.
Over the course of six days, the exercise’s footprint in Guam grew from 25 people and one aircraft to 1,100 people and 27 aircraft from seven countries.
First got here satellite communications, so the contingency response team could refer to the aircraft that began arriving inside hours. Then got here a logistical hub where airmen could unload planes and prepare them for his or her next flights out.
The positioning became often known as Forward Operating Base LFG (“let’s f***ing go”) — a camp of a couple of dozen air-conditioned, generator-powered trailers arrayed around a small hangar crammed with aeromedical evacuation supplies, airdrop cargo and towering stacks of water bottles. A black flag bearing a skull and crossbones fluttered overhead.
Contingency response handed off control of the bottom to the air expeditionary wing staff at noon on July 10 — 54 hours after Berdecía’s team landed in Guam.
That put the wing’s air staff in command of ensuring life in the sphere ran easily: Procuring greater than 650 roast beef sandwiches for boxed lunches. Ensuring dozens of port-a-potties were usually serviced. Determining who, exactly, owned the fleet of 53 rental cars.
It was a smaller, more austere footprint than the Air Force had envisioned. Due to Typhoon Mawar, the Category 4 storm that hit Guam May 24, the Federal Emergency Management Agency had taken over an area at Guam’s international airport that the Air Force had planned to make use of. That brought more jets and airmen to Andersen, where leaders anxious that the influx of individuals would strain already-struggling resources.
“It’s a really congested operation … a ballet of those elephants on the market,” 621st Contingency Response Group commander Col. Daniel Mollis said.
Airmen charted every day’s planned missions on large whiteboards and handed out paper copies of their flight profiles — a technique to navigate differences in each country’s security clearances and software that wouldn’t list non-U.S. flights.
Leaders tasked airmen with moving troops and equipment in support of other U.S. and allied exercises across the Pacific, just like the U.S. Air Force’s Northern Edge. When not on real-world missions, they practiced skills like aeromedical evacuation.
Island-hopping within the Pacific offered the prospect to practice refueling aircraft with gas pumps on the bottom, and with engines running, to cut back reliance on tanker jets. The Air Force found there’s a greater demand for those operations across the joint force than expected, a spokesperson said after the exercise.
Airmen also practiced launching and landing airlifters at steep angles on unlit, short runways. Those “assault landings” can protect aircraft from incoming fire, and forestall them from damaging the plane by overshooting smaller-than-usual airstrips.
Pilots and crews flew missions on jets from other countries to learn from their foreign counterparts, and maintainers swapped tips about easy methods to repair the airframes they’ve in common with their allies.
Airman 1st Class Trenton McGregor, a C-17 maintenance crew chief, said the exercise pushed his team to anticipate a jet’s needs before it returned to base, and to work more efficiently with fewer people and tools.
“You might have to learn to adapt and … unfolded between different people,” he said. “Guys that normally don’t do my job are having to do my job, and I’m having to exit and help these guys that I don’t know an excessive amount of about. We’re all learning on the fly.”
Unexpected emergencies tested the coalition, too.
On July 10, the U.S. Coast Guard called for help to save lots of 11 people whose 21-foot boat was in peril of capsizing in rough waters off the coast of Rota within the Northern Mariana Islands, the U.S. Air Force said. Planners at Andersen dispatched French A400 and Canadian CC-130J airlifters to seek out and maintain contact with the boat until U.S. Navy rescue forces arrived.
Mobility Guardian participants also rescued a hiker who fell down a cliff, and transported a 10-day-old newborn with an enlarged heart from Yokota Air Base in Japan to america for emergency medical care.
Capt. Mike Thomas, who guided the exercise’s day by day operations because the agnostic “white cell,” said the coalition planning cell did much better than expected at navigating the day by day grind.
“The scariest thing that you could see as a mission commander or an air planner is for those who walk right into a mission planning cell and it’s quiet, because that signifies that no one’s talking, no one’s actually highlighting problems,” he said. “After we walked into the coalition mission planning cell, it was just humming.”
Coalition participants praised the prospect to work through problems unlike those they faced with the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“It’s funny once you’re working on both sides of the [International Date Line], because sometimes we’re [on] the 14th, but some guys are still [on] the thirteenth, and even once you’re attempting to discuss in Zulu time, it’s Zulu on which day?” said Col. Franck Bottero, who led France’s delegation to the exercise. “We’re using the identical procedures, but considering the scale and different spokes, I feel it’s quite recent for us.”
Airmen from multiple countries noted that the American penchant for process meant the U.S. planned missions more cautiously than others, forcing foreign airmen to maneuver slower as well.
“The U.S. has quite a lot of very well-established systems and processes, which could be very required for the big scale that the U.S. forces have. In Australia … some things may be more agile,” said Flight Lt. Peter Spearman, who led Royal Australian Air Force C-17 operations at Mobility Guardian. “That sometimes is helpful, especially with the ability to change regulation when it’s limiting us.”
In the approaching months, the coalition will attempt to turn lessons learned into future fixes.
Mobility Guardian highlighted the necessity to work in smaller teams with enough tools to do the job if others take longer to reach, to remove the red tape that keeps cargo on jets too long, to make sure all airmen are communicating using the identical apps, and to speculate in equipment like secure radios and the militarized version of SpaceX’s Starlink.
It has illustrated the frustrations of attempting to navigate the Pacific’s many airports and finicky weather, and the opportunities that arise from sharing airmen and jets.
And it showed airmen that even with a fraction of their team on the bottom, demand for air mobility assets never lets up. Berdecía said the exercise proved the issue of ranging from scratch, even with support from contingency response and the local base.
“We’ve proven that this idea works,” he said. “We’ll proceed gathering lessons learned, as small as they may be all of the technique to as large as they may be, and adjust for the following Mobility Guardian and/or real contingency that may call for the sort of structure.”
There’s plenty that isn’t ready for primetime yet. But Mobility Guardian showcased what may very well be: A more self-reliant, swift-moving international air coalition in even the remotest places.
A U.S. Army cavalry squadron, freshly arrived from Hawaii, loitered at the sting of camp on July 13. An airman nodded of their direction.
“The Army’s here now,” he told Berdecía.
Berdecía smiled back. “And look who got them here.”
Rachel Cohen joined Air Force Times as senior reporter in March 2021. Her work has appeared in Air Force Magazine, Inside Defense, Inside Health Policy, the Frederick News-Post (Md.), the Washington Post, and others.