Team Rescue exercises combat readiness in Savannah

  • Published
  • By Capt. Cathleen Snow
  • 920th Rescue Wing Public Affairs
PATRICK AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  For several days Team Rescue is being tested on their ability to deploy personnel and assets to an overseas location in support of combatant commanders during an Operational Readiness Exercise Nov. 3-9 that will take approximately 330 Airmen to the Combat Readiness Training Center in Savannah, Ga.

During this exercise, the 920th will be evaluated on the wing's ability to prepare and mobilize from peacetime readiness to a wartime posture on short notice. Areas evaluated include command and control, deployment processing, employment readiness, information operations and force protection.

"Our goal is to focus on how we would execute a mission if tasked in real-time with an emphasis on satisfying real world requirements," said Col. Jeffrey Macrander, 920th RQW Commander.

The exercise is a preparatory event for an April 2013 Operational Readiness Inspection and will give wing leadership an opportunity to observe the state of readiness of the wing's ability to rapidly deploy to a downrange location.

The colonel said the exercise will create a foundation for other learning opportunities in the future.

Within the past year and a half, Rescue Wing Airmen have deployed overseas to Afghanistan, Germany and the Horn of Africa providing both humanitarian relief and combat rescue search and rescue. 

The wing's primary wartime job is combat search and rescue, which involves locating and rescuing service members isolated or injured in combat - such as combatants injured on the battlefield or pilots shot down behind enemy lines.

Airmen from 920th RQW Airmen have saved more than 3,000 lives since the unit stood up in 1956.

Rescue Airmen are the only members of the DoD specifically organized, trained and equipped to conduct personnel recovery operations in hostile or denied areas as a primary mission.

This is the second of three such exercises over the course of the next five months Rescue Airmen are participating in.