621st CRW leadership speaks at Peruvian Joint School of the Armed Forces, enhances partnership

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  • By 621st Contingency Response Wing Public Affairs
  • 621st Contingency Response Wing
JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST --  

Leadership from the 621st Contingency Response Wing spoke at the Escuela Conjunta de las Fuerzas Armadas, or Peruvian Joint School of the Armed Forces, March 3 in Lima, Peru, about the mission of their wing as well as their command philosophies.

The 621st CRW leadership team from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey, was in Peru to observe aerial logistics training conducted by the 571st Mobility Support Advisory Squadron, a subordinate unit to the 621st CRW, with the Peruvian air force, also known as Fuerza Aérea del Perú or FAP. The engagement at the school capstoned a three-day stint in the country that included observing training conducted by the 571st MSAS, getting to know the unit’s air advisors, and recognizing outstanding performers from the unit.

“I want to thank the Peruvian Joint School of the Armed Forces for receiving us with open arms,” said U.S. Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Tony Jenkins, 621st CRW command chief. “It was terrific to see the investment that the Peruvian military is making in training its personnel, and discussions like this will only bring our nations together as partners.”

U.S. Air Force Col. Doug Jackson, 621st CRW commander and Jenkins presented at the school at the request of Contralmirante Walter Rabines Cuttin, Peruvian Joint School of the Armed Forces director. The 621st CRW leadership team’s discussion there served to highlight the similarities between elements of the Peruvian armed forces’ mission in responding to natural disasters and other contingency situations and the 621st CRW’s mission in global contingency response.  In making this comparison, the engagement served to open up the opportunity for further cooperation between elements of the Peruvian military and the 621st CRW.

“The opportunity for me and Chief Jenkins to share our mission and command philosophy with the Peruvian Joint School of the Armed Forces is invaluable, and discussions like this can only make both our countries stronger,” Jackson said.  I look forward to future partnership and jointly discovering new ways to work together and learn from each other.”

The relationship between the FAP and the 571st MSAS goes back seven years to when the unit’s first Mobile Training Team traveled to Peru in 2013, two years after the unit’s inception.  The MSAS has continued to work with the FAP since then, executing one or two MTT mission per year. This year, Tech. Sgts. Joseph Wruck and James Garcia Arvelo, 571st MSAS, are the senior air advisors in charge of developing, running, and overseeing the month-long curriculum, focused on developing the FAP’s aerial logistics enterprise.

“This training has been challenging yet rewarding,” said Wruck. “We have managed to integrate courseware and teaching from six subject matter experts to build a comprehensive aerial logistics course for our partners and teaching a holistic approach to logistics during routine and contingency operations. This comprehensive approach is especially important because our students often work outside of their specialties, necessitating greater breadth of training. Coming out of this training, we look forward to strengthening our ties and bolstering the FAP’s logistical footprint.”

This year’s training brings in personnel from four different FAP organizations for instruction: Air Group 8, Air Group 3, Air Group 42, and the FAP’s logistics headquarter. With the diversity of FAP students, Wruck and Garcia have pioneered a new instruction model. This model capitalizes on the 571st MSAS’s strengths in containing many different Air Force Specialty Codes to bring together instructors from six different AFSCs to teach a comprehensive aerial logistics class. Fusing instruction from all of these specialties allows FAP students to develop a broader understanding of the logistics enterprise and is especially useful in an environment where they may be called on to perform different functions within their work centers.

“Experience and knowledge are the building blocks for successful, safe, and high-quality execution of all of an organization’s diverse tasks,” Capitán Renato Rubén Figueroa Vasquez, Peruvian Joint School of the Armed Forces class lead. “The work that the 571st MSAS is doing with different units from the Peruvian air force during this aerial logistics course helps empower and professionally develop our personnel by challenging us with higher goals and giving our personnel the chance to learn skills through application and controlled decision-making. I know that this work will ultimately help both of our Air Forces synchronize our processes and bring us toward greater interoperability”.

The 571st MSAS is a language enabled squadron that assesses, advises, and assists Latin American and Caribbean countries to enhance their airpower capabilities as part of the U.S. Air Force’s and Air Mobility Command’s enduring building partner capacity mission. Each successive engagement supports Peru’s foundation of freedom, stability and prosperity in the region, and contributes to U.S. Southern Command’s objectives.