HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. —  

Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) continues to innovate the way Air Commandos train and execute joint special operations missions in this century’s complex and competitive battlespace.

Among these recent innovative changes include the further development of multi-functional Airmen and their integration into a new Special Operations Task Unit (SOTU), known as a Mission Sustainment Team (MST).

“As the Air Force continues to operationalize and codify its approaches to Agile Combat Employment (ACE), a key effort is establishing how we’ll bring together the complementary capabilities of our fighter, bomber, mobility, and special operations forces,” said Dr. Sandeep Mulgund, Senior Advisor to the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for operations. “Doing so will be key to creating, maintaining, and fighting from positions of advantage, which the CSAF has emphasized in recent remarks about ACE. By integrating MSTs into SOF capabilities, we’ll provide more options for our joint force and coalition commanders on how to generate and employ airpower.”

For nearly a year, the 1st Special Operations Wing, has developed its MST as a proof of concept to ensure multi-capable Airmen within AFSOC are able to meet the needs of combatant commanders against any potential adversary in the future. Its role will be to act as the connective tissue that bridges the Air Force’s ACE capability with current AFSOF capabilities in a joint environment.

“Our MST allows us to provide force support, civil engineering, communications, logistics, security forces, medical, airfield management and contracting capabilities,” said Col. Daniel Magruder, 1 SOW vice commander. “We now can take what are normally base support functions and operationalize them to support combat missions. Ultimately, without the total package of aviation, maintenance, and support provided by our multi-capable Airmen, the mission will not get done.”

In order to accomplish this capability, MSTs are designed to train 58 Air Commandos from 22 different Air Force AFSCs with seamlessly blending their operations and becoming proficient in several competencies in order to receive, prepare and redeploy aircraft expeditiously.

“It’s a huge asset to the MST for our Airmen to have the adaptability and confidence in varying skills to better meet the challenges of the changing threat environment and determine best practices for mission support within the ACE construct moving forward,” said Capt. Melissa Cecil, 1st Special Operations Mission Support Group Detachment 1 commander. “Our goal is to empower our Air Commandos to problem solve and think critically while also giving them the tools they need to operate and make decisions at dispersed locations. In some of these locations, they will be relied upon as the subject matter expert for all things mission support.”

Utilizing multi-capable Airmen was at the forefront of AFSOC leaders’ mind when they developed the MST.

“Our MSTs are empowered to adapt to assigned missions,” said Magruder. “As an Air Force, it is important to empower units at the lowest level to achieve their assigned missions.”

“Each of the military services are developing approaches to operations that recognize the need for agility and maneuver in the future threat environment,” added Mulgund. “They each have their unique focus areas and nuances, but common to all is this idea of being light on your feet to shift forces and effort where and when required. Joint approaches to agility will pull all these together to meet the needs of our combatant commanders worldwide. MSTs are part of that joint solution. Our Air Commandos now can enable and support austere operations by other special operations forces as well as allied forces when required.”

The 1 SOW’s MST recently tested their ability to help generate and integrate into air operations components during its recent participation in two exercises with drastically different theaters of operation.

“MSTs provide flexibility to the force because they can establish, sustain and retrograde forward operating locations for AFSOF mission generation,” said Magruder. “The team has been aggressively rehearsing this training in exercises like Agile Flag or INDOPACOM’s Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise.”

As part of Air Combat Command’s Agile Flag, an exercise in a simulated rural deployed setting, the MST assisted in enabling scripted joint force air component ACE missions.

“Multi-capable Airmen is what gives the MST the capabilities it has,” said Capt. Patrick Sutton-Buscavage, 1 SOMSG Det 1 director of operations. “During Agile Flag we were able to rapidly support and sustain operations for Aircrew, maintenance and forward arming and refueling point (FARP) teams in two separate locations at the same time. Without multi-capable Airmen on our team, this doesn’t happen.”

Although Agile Flag is aimed at testing several different units’ mission generation, command and control, and base operating support-integrator elements, the MST’s inclusion provided an avenue to test the newly implemented special operations sustainment task unit in a realistic and controlled setting. It also allowed those who will be deploying in the newer, more predictable, deployment structure to develop the continuity of processes and team building needed to effectively operate in austere conditions or in support of a Theater Special Operations Command.

“The intent of MST is to align directly with the SOFORGEN cycle and integrate into a SOTU construct downrange,” Cecil said. “Although the MST is still in its infancy, we are working to build relationships and seek out further training and utilization opportunities to demonstrate how we can best be integrated across multiple areas of operation.”

In addition to Agile Flag, the MST also supported INDOPACOM’ recent RIMPAC exercise, which is the world’s largest international maritime warfare exercise. The MST’s involvement in the exercise directly influenced the ability for commanders to employ not just American special forces but also from India, Germany and the Republic of Korea.

“Large exercises, like RIMPAC, allow our team to showcase our force generation capabilities to the joint and international forces while also looking for ways to collaborate,” Magruder said. “The benefits of the MST concept is that it allows our commanders to employ multiple teams across a large AOR in order to form a more theater level power projection platform.”

“Whatever the challenge, we’ll need small multi-disciplinary teams like MSTs to support mission generation in a wide variety of operating environments,” Mulgund added.

The MST continues to prove that the development of multi-capable Airmen is pivotal to the future of how AFSOC generates forces.

“Multi-capable Airmen are the building blocks for developing small capable special operations teams required to adapt to any combat environment,” said Magruder. “Their incorporation into the MST is the first step in the wing’s campaign to improve the way we process and provide sustained logistical support against any potential adversaries.”

By TSgt Michael Charles, 1st Special Operations Wing

HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. —  

Resiliency of our Air Commandos has always been on the forefront for AFSOC. The command is constantly on the lookout for new programs and initiatives to elevate the ways we can build up our Airmen.

In 2020, helping agencies within AFSOC united under one single initiative, the AFSOC Integrated Resilience Optimization Network (IRON), to bring a more functionally aligned and organized focus on resiliency for our Air Commandos and their families.

 “Building the resiliency of our Air Commandos is so important,” said Onnie Retkofsky, AFSOC Iron Division Chief. “Organizing the helping agencies together under one conceptual framework optimized our resiliency programs and resources within AFSOC, ultimately making them more effectively communicated, and providing the most benefit for our Airmen and their families.”

AFSOC IRON forges resilience around 5 domains: physical, psychological, cognitive, social, and spiritual.

As part of the IRON program, each AFSOC wing has its own IRON lead representative for each performance domain. These advocates coordinate with helping agencies and providers assigned to each pillar to ensure Airmen and their families have access to all resources available. They also coordinate events and facilitate working groups between the agencies of the pillar they represent.

The IRON framework hosts regular resiliency events at various installations across the command to discuss and collaborate on resiliency programs. Often these events are focused around a certain pillar, but always incorporating concepts from the other domains to create and teach a holistic view of resilience.

The AFSOC IRON team held an IRON Physical Performance summit here, July 19-21, bringing in IRON representatives and providers from across the AFSOC wings to collaborate and educate on the programs most recent developments and set the vision for the future of IRON: AFSOC’s Airmen performing at their fullest potential.

“We wanted the focus of this first year’s summit to be on the physical pillar, which has the ability to incorporate all Airmen in a neutral and positive setting regardless of their current individual situations. We will increase our summit to integrate the other resiliency pillars as funding allows and COVID restrictions lift, to continue to create and build a holistic approach to refining resilience in our Airmen” said Retkofsky.

Feedback the IRON team has received on the effectiveness of these resiliency summits, and the program as a whole, has been nothing but positive.

“What our helping agencies and IRON members love about these summits, is the fact that we can all meet, learn and advocate for resiliency programs and techniques in-person again, said Retkofsky. “Meeting over Microsoft Teams once a month allows us to stay connected, but nothing beats the collaborative process of being together in-person.”

To learn more about the IRON program and resources you have available, reach out to your wing’s IRON representative.

By Air Force Special Operations Command Public Affairs