Exercise evaluation teams prepare Wolf Pack for inspections, real world

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Amanda Savannah
  • 8th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
KUNSAN AIR BASE, Republic of Korea --  You're entering hour 10 of your 12-hour shift, when something red catches the corner of your eye.

You look over and see an Airman clad in individual protective equipment, like yourself, but something is different - that bright red badge on his left shoulder.

Your nerves tense and your heartbeat quickens as you try to mentally prepare for whatever situation is about to unfold. That Airman with the red badge is an exercise evaluation team member, who has come to evaluate your response to the scenario.

Scenes like this have played out many times over in the past several months at Kunsan, as the 8th Fighter Wing prepares for the Pacific Air Forces Inspector General Operational Readiness Inspection next month.

To prepare the Wolf Pack, EET chiefs Lt. Col. Robert Bradeen, Maj. Francis Rurka, and Maj. Paul Willingham manage the wing's exercises.

"(We) are the 'warlords,' so we run the exercises and we're in charge of EET," Major Willingham said. "The purpose of (wing-level) EET is that it's the local side of the PACAF IG team. When we have these exercises every month, we don't have PACAF in here to evaluate, so we evaluate ourselves."

To ensure the wing is prepared for any situation, the EET chiefs plan several different events that happen daily during an exercise week, which vary from ground attacks, to medical emergencies, to chemical-laden missile attacks and more.

"We are evaluating everything," Major Willingham said. "During a normal exercise, we have more than 100 exercise injects a day, every day throughout the week. The really heavy days get up to about 130-140 specific events that are happening throughout that day."

To evaluate the entire Wolf Pack's response to these events, the EET chiefs rely on group and squadron EET members to be their eyes, ears and voices within the unit.

"The squadron EET members are the experts in their squadrons," said Major Willingham. "Their commander has made them EET because of their experience and knowledge, so they've got to be an expert, not just in whatever their field is, but all other areas like (ability to survive and operate scenarios) and things like that, because they've got to be able to evaluate their squadron's performance."


Chief Master Sgt. Dudley Baker, 8th Mission Support Group chief, is the EET lead for the MSG. He came to Kunsan with EET experience as a previous member of the Air Mobility Command inspector general team.

"I've been asked by Falcon (Col. Richard Palmieri, 8th MSG commander) to be the oversight for all of our EET in our five squadrons and the staff," Chief Baker said. "My primary role is to make sure they are looking at the mission sets they need to within their squadrons, and that they're properly evaluating those. I ... look at the big moving parts of all of our squadrons to see what their missions are. I talk to the folks and see what it is, and I also get out there to see our people to see they're all right and they're being taken care of."

Master Sgt. Myong Yi, 8th Security Forces Squadron NCO in charge of standardization and evaluation, is the 8th SFS EET lead.

"I was selected as EET because it is traditional for ... stand eval to own the EET process for SFS, because on stand eval, we are the (squadron's) last certifiers," Sergeant Yi said. "We validate the supervisor training, SF training and say, 'This guy is ready to defend the base, this guy is ready to be a law enforcement personnel.' We are the validation piece."

"My role is to evaluate our guys in responding to a real world scenario, say, (opposition forces) or North Korean Special Forces come to attack one of our command posts, I want to see how my guys react," Sergeant Yi continued. "I want to see their fire discipline; I want to see how many rounds they shoot off, that they make sure there's no fratricide, what their field of vision is, what they are seeing and how they are communicating."

Throughout the exercises, EET members document findings of errors in responses, and sometimes give instant feedback on these errors.

"There's a lot of spot corrections that are made ... where someone's not doing something quite right, maybe on a (post-attack reconnaissance) sweep or their gear is not put on quite right, and that all leads to making sure we can survive and continue to operate," Chief Baker said. "If we find something that is wrong, we also highlight that to the team that's working that issue, and it's based within an (Air Force Instruction), policy or local instruction. Everything that comes out to be a finding or deficiency has to be found and based in an AFI or other directive."

Although some people may have the misconception that the EET is intentionally trying to catch them responding to a situation incorrectly, Major Willingham said that is not their goal.

"The reason for EET is twofold," he said. "One is the evaluation piece. We have to have some way to determine what the wing's capabilities and abilities are, and it's through EET members' observations throughout the week. But the other piece is the instructing part. When they notice that someone is doing something incorrectly ... they're there to instruct ... and teach them right there on the spot so that person finishes the rest of the exercise doing the procedures correctly."

Performing the procedures correctly is important not just for the wing to pass the ORI, but because it can save lives in real-world situations.

"Performing the procedures is important because one, we've got a (PACAF IG) inspection in a week and a half, and PACAF is going to look at everything we do; but also because depending on what it is, it potentially will kill you if you don't do it correctly," Major Willingham said. "If we ever did find ourselves in a chemical-type environment, then not doing these procedures the way they're supposed to be done will potentially lead to a lot of injuries or deaths based on the environment that we're in."

Chief Baker also said that exercise evaluation isn't just for exercises and inspections.

"EET is important because it's a part of every (wing) process," Chief Baker said. "A lot of people have the mindset that we do the mission, and then we do the inspection, that it's something else. I try to change that mindset, because it is part of our mission ... it's not separate. We do the tasks, the techniques and procedures, and then we get assessed, and then we correct and go through it all again. It's all integrated into the mission."

As the Wolf Pack enters the final stretch before the ORI, Major Willingham and Chief Baker offered some final words of encouragement.

"Put your game face on; it's only a week," the major said. "This is the last leg, so let's do it right for one more week. We're going to show the inspectors what the Wolf Pack is capable of. We've been training for this for the last nine months, now this is our chance to show PACAF what we can do."

"I believe we're ready," said Chief Baker. "We just need to go into it with confidence. We know our mission, there's no doubt as we go out and look around, people know their job. I think we need to study a little more in some areas, and make sure that when we're talking to the IG we're confident in our responses and that we react with a sense of urgency. Bottom line, I just want to say good luck and I know we're going to do well. Go Wolf Pack!"