Silver Flag Airmen combine forces, strengthen AF mission

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Larissa Greatwood
  • 86th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany --  Civil engineer Airmen from Ramstein and Spangdahlem Air Bases, Germany, and Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, joined together for Silver Flag training from March 15 through 22 to form bonds, work together and, ultimately, improve their abilities to accomplish their mission at any given moment.

Being prepared for any situation is crucial to the Air Force mission. When it comes to training for real-world dangers, Airmen are doing whatever means necessary to accomplish just that.

"The biggest thing is being prepared," said Senior Airman Faisal Farooq, 52nd Civil Engineer Squadron emergency manager. "You never know when could happen whether deployed or at home station. We could have hazards affect the installation or mission, so we always have to be prepared for that."

Airmen spent five days in a classroom discussing emergency management and actions. Once the exercise began, Airmen were given scenarios on fire rescue, hazardous materiel management, and crater and flightline repair.

"Throughout the week, we gave the Airmen classroom instruction on our wartime tasks as emergency managers, and then gave them a couple scenarios so they could practice hands-on," said Staff Sgt. Matthew Woolery, 435th Construction and Training Squadron emergency management contingency instructor. "[On] our exercise day, we evaluated them on the skills they've learned."

The civil engineer Airmen come from a vast group of specific career fields. Because of the variety of specialties, Silver Flag allows Airmen to work together and understand how each operates and how they intertwine.

"The fire department tends to be the career field that gets in, gets out, and saves lives because they're first responders," Woolery said. "With emergency management, we tend to be slower and more methodical. A lot of the stuff we do takes patience; Silver Flag allows Airmen to work out any miscommunications to work together as best as possible."

A fire response and hazmat scenario was set up to allow the firefighting and emergency management Airmen to work together as they might in a real-world situation.

"The hazmat scenarios gave Airmen the opportunity to do their job which is to identify hazards, quantify the hazard if possible and make recommendations to leaders to mitigate those hazards to keep people safe," said Woolery. "The emergency management Airmen went in and identified a suspicious substance the firefighters found after a simulated building fire."

After being part of the first hazmat team to enter the building, Farooq said he thinks the scenario went well considering their limited experience with the setup. He said though there may be small obstacles when responding, Silver Flag has helped him conquer them for the future.

Farooq said the best part of his job is being able to physically go out and do it.

"My favorite part of this kind of training is going in and responding," said Farooq. "There's a management side to what we do as far as preparing for any type of hazards, accidents or attacks. This kind of training is vital in helping us prepare for real-world situations."

With the eight days of training complete, Farooq said Silver Flag not only increased his confidence to accomplish the mission, but also strengthened the bonds and trust of all the Airmen who came together for Silver Flag 2015.