374th OG commander emphasizes exercise importance

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  • By 374th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan --  Airmen at Yokota are currently engaged in a week-long operational readiness exercise designed to put their knowledge, resourcefulness, skill and teamwork to the test in accomplishing simulated wartime scenarios.

Like all U.S. military installations, Yokota conducts these exercises multiple times throughout the year.

In a recent interview, Col. David Gould, 374th Operations Group commander, spoke about the nature and importance of these exercises.

"The wing conducts OREs to do two things," said Gould. "The first is to train for tasks and situations that we can only accomplish together, and the second is to validate individual units' abilities to meet mission requirements."

Armed with an Airman's Manual and their Wingmen, players are expected to treat each event as if it were a real-world situation. Accuracy and a sense of urgency are key.

"We train like we expect to execute in real-world scenarios," Gould said. "When we do this, we ensure that we get into the habit of doing things right."

We don't want to fail when put to the test, and this realistic approach to exercises helps ensure that we'll be ready for anything."

Because service members can be called to action suddenly and in response to any kind of situation, knowing what to do, how to do it and when to do it needs to be second nature.

"In the past 20 years, no conflict that the U.S. has taken part in has been one that the U.S. had expected to take a part in," said Gould. "Every conflict in the last 20 years has come down on short notice. That's why it's very important for us to be ready to fight.

"We need to train to keep our skills honed and sharp--to show ourselves as well as any perspective adversaries that we are ready to accomplish our mission, whenever we are asked to do so."