Experienced maintainers train active-duty Airmen
by Master Sgt. Orville F. Desjarlais Jr.
Air Force Print News
4/29/2005 - SAN ANTONIO (AFPN) -- Spending four years on active duty and 26 years in the Vermont Air National Guard, Chief Master Sgt. Tim Brisson has a wealth of experience as an aircraft maintainer. He has just about seen it all -- until April 25.
That was when officials at Shaw Air Force Base, S.C., and the Vermont Guard signed an agreement smoothing the way for the chief and his wing of 40 maintainers to train active-duty Airmen fresh out of technical school.
“We’re really excited about this,” said Chief Brisson, 158th Fighter Wing’s aircraft maintenance superintendent. “We’re going to be able to transfer years of experience to our younger Airmen. Our experience level will increase their knowledge.”
It will mark the first time guardsmen will train active-duty maintainers. When they complete their aircraft maintenance training school, the active-duty Airmen will report to the Vermont Air National Guard in South Burlington, Vt., as their first duty station. Once they arrive in June, Guard maintainers will provide two to three years of on-the-job training during the young Airmen’s formative years as maintainers.
“This is transformational and is in line with the way we fight together,” said Col. Philip Ruhlman, 20th Fighter Wing commander.
Transformational, indeed. It falls under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s Future Total Force concept, which helps shape the way the Air Force trains, equips and uses its active-duty and Guard Airmen. Officials said allowing guardsmen to train active-duty Airmen will rebalance the service’s experience levels.
“Transforming is more than upgrading equipment,” said Maj. Gen. Martha Rainville, Vermont’s adjutant general. “It’s how you treat your people.”
In another transformational twist, the fledgling maintainers are blazing a new trail in an experimental program called, “community basing.” Instead of living on base, they will live in contracted housing off base. They will trade in their meals cards for basic allowance for subsistence and give up the dining hall for off-base restaurants.
Air Force officials said if the community basing initiative is successful, 200 to 300 Airmen may follow in their footsteps. However, it is all experimental, and no one knows that more than Master Sgt. Roger Harms.
Sergeant Harms is currently moving out of his home at Luke AFB, Ariz., to settle in Vermont as the detachment superintendent and part-time first sergeant. The active-duty sergeant said he thinks the community basing initiative is a great idea, but he expects challenges with young Airmen living alone off base.
Not only will the maintainers be detached from everybody else, they will be the only active-duty Airmen in the wing; but Sergeant Harms does not see that as a problem.
“The Guard is going out of its way to make them feel welcome,” Sergeant Harm said. “The Guard also has to train technical students, and they know the troubling issues that face young people. But if you think about it, there are obstacles in every training environment.”
“Once they understand the importance of this program -- that it is a test to see if they can live in the community -- they will understand they will have to maintain a higher level of standard being ambassadors in blue,” Sergeant Harms said. |
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