Exercising resourcefulness at PSU 309 Story by Lt. Chris LaRocque, Photos courtesy of Petty Officer 1st Class Charles Corcoran Annually, the Air Force Reserve Command hosts a massive collaboration of more than 350 military, federal, and state personnel along with as many as five Air Force Command Wings for loadmaster training. In separate multi-day evolutions, the AFRC-hosted training focuses on the air mobility of the Air Force Reserve, Army, Department of Justice, and Department of Homeland Security assets. Exercise Patriot Hook and Exercise Patriot Sands have become the Coast Guard’s primary sources of hands-on training in the contingency response arena. Specifically, for Coast Guard port security unit personnel, the yearly exercises provide an opportunity to build proficiency in load planning, including passenger placement, weight distribution, hazardous material, knowledge of integrated cargo strapping and locking mechanisms, and military and federal laws and regulations—all necessary skillsets for rapid deployment to a forward theater. Among the challenges of a constrained budget, fiscal year 2022 eliminated these exercises, which limited hands-on exposure for service members to apply classroom training and refine their contingency response capabilities. Without a joint exercise in place to increase readiness and interoperability with other organizations, members relied on institutional knowledge and legacy experience, while navigating the increasing op-tempo from arising global conflicts. Recently, reserve members from Port Security Unit 309’s engineering division attended a scheduled loadmaster course for classroom instruction at 251st Cyberspace Engineering Installations Group, Air National Guard Base in Springfield, Ohio. While the course was intended to be limited to a five-day resident load planners course, a captive audience of Air Force, Army, and Coast Guard personnel was enough to augment the experience with a little help. Lacking the budget or logistical capability to match the breadth and resource requirements of exercises like Patriot Hook and Patriot Sands, the contingents from the three services showed their resourcefulness, creatively developing an adaptive force package training evolution. In a demonstration of collaboration, the Air Force provided a C-17 Globemaster from the 315th Airlift Wing at Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina; the Army’s 37th Infantry Brigade Combat Team mobilized an equipment payload from Columbus, Ohio; and PSU 309 provided unit members from Port Clinton, Ohio, with a prime mover and a trailered 32-foot transportable port security boat. All units converged at nearby Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. In an expeditionary environment often requiring worldwide deployment within 72 hours of tasking, proficiency in mobility execution is vital. Development of this proficiency requires applied knowledge through field exercises, which becomes increasingly difficult to manage in a fiscally constrained environment. The Coast Guard as an organization demonstrates resourcefulness to meet our objectives in the face of funding shortfalls. Such an ad-hoc display of our capabilities in a joint environment driven at the deckplate level was both impressive and effective, affording servicemembers from three service branches the opportunity to gain hands-on experience with load planning that would otherwise have been unavailable. Thanks to these members from PSU 309 and our sister services, we remain Semper Paratus. � In a demonstration of collaboration, the Air Force provided a C-17 Globemaster from the 315th Airlift Wing at Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina; the Army’s 37th Infantry Brigade Combat Team mobilized an equipment payload from Columbus, Ohio; and PSU 309 provided unit members from Port Clinton, Ohio, with a prime mover and a trailered port security boat. 32-foot transportable Issue 3 • 2022 � RESERVIST 13
