04.04.2019
Story by Airman Erick Green
101st Air Refueling Wing/Public Affairs
SAVANNAH AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, Ga. (April 4, 2019) -- Airmen at the 101st Air Refueling Wing are very committed to mission-readiness and being prepared for anything thrown at them. Being mission-ready sometimes takes a little more than performing exercises in our home state of Maine though. For the Airmen in the Fire and Emergency Services flight here at the 101st, they take advantage of the opportunity that has been given to them in traveling down south to Savannah, Georgia at the 165th Airlift Wing. Here the 101st is met with other guardsmen from other parts of New England who are ready to train as well.
“Our mission goal while in Savannah is to build comradery while still accomplishing the required training that we came here to do,” said Chief Master Sgt. Jeremiah Jordan, the military Fire Chief at the 101st Air Refueling Wing. “Our goal is to make sure our Airmen are both deployable and in other cases getting the training that they need to go onto their next skill level.”
The opportunity to be able to come to Savannah was something that Jordan wanted to jump on once the chance presented itself.
“The chance to be able to come down here and experience the diversity of thought that many other Guard units have was something that I wanted my unit and I to experience,” said Jordan. “The different ways that they do things could help our unit see other ways of doing our job opposed to just the way that the 101st operates.”
The 101st has come to Savannah for the past four years for this annual training, and every year the training has changed and improved in a variety of ways, this is all thanks to Jordan and the other higher-ranking enlisted that accompany him on this trip. One of the key leaders in the evolution of these annual exercises is Chief Master Sgt. Robert Cross, the Installation Fire Chief for the 103rd Airlift Wing in Connecticut.
“One of our main goals as we try to evolve this training year after year is to retain our firefighters,” said Cross. “We collected data that a lot of Airmen were leaving because they didn’t feel like they were actually military firefighters.
“So once we captured that data, we developed a plan a few years ago to come down to Savannah and build comradery amongst the units,” said Cross. “We wanted to get our firefighting training done in a very short period of time without anything external taking away from the training and getting the job done.”
The 101st was not always apart of the annual training in Savannah though, as originally it was only a couple of different Guard units that came together in Georgia for a significantly smaller gathering.
“Originally it was Connecticut and Rhode Island that came down here for a couple years before we came along with them,” said Jordan. “In 2016 we jumped in and along the way a couple more Guard units joined as well and together we all made the training that our Airmen are experiencing this week possible.”
The training in Savannah that the Airmen endured includes learning key knowledge like how to handle hazardous material and to use the technology involved, vehicle extrication, how to use cables to navigate down buildings in order to rescue trapped victims, small arms certification, extinguishing a live fire and other practical examinations such as situations that they would face while on the job.
“Being able to come down here and worry about nothing but training has really helped not only the 101st, but the other units gathered here as well,” said Jordan. “Not having to worry about Commander’s Call, or medical appointments or anything else external and to just train and only worry about training has helped us so much.”
