Celebrating AMOS 50 years, 35-year AMOS veteran

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Brad Seehawer
  • 321st Air Mobility Operations Squadron
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  

Master Sgt. Gene Havens arrived at Travis Air Force Base back in September 1989. He remembers because he took his family to see a Giants baseball game in San Francisco right before the famous earthquake that year.

Official Biography Photo

Official biography photo for retired Senior Master Sgt. Gene Havens. (courtesy photo)

A combat controller by trade, medical issues took him out of the field and put him in the Combat Operations Directorate of the 22nd Air Force, Military Airlift Command’s numbered air force that controlled all exercise, contingency and humanitarian relief airlift missions traveling west of the Mississippi River. The directorate was also constituted into a squadron known as the 1702nd Mobility Support Squadron (MOBSS).

The 1980s for MAC were focused on supporting short conflicts in Central and South America – Grenada, Nicaragua, Panama – giving the Air Force an opportunity to refine how it delivered cargo, troops, and humanitarian aid.

Members of the 1702nd MOBSS planned missions to support all these operations, often in coordination with their Tactical Airlift Liaison Officers, the predecessors to the Air Mobility Liaison Officer, embedded with Army units to help deploy their cargo on MAC aircraft. For operations in austere locations they might deploy an Airlift Control Element, the predecessor to the Contingency Response Element, to operate the airfield. Members of the MOBBS might deploy themselves to establish a self-contained Airlift Control Center to plan missions closer to the fight.

During Operation DESERT STORM, Tactical Air Command introduced the Air Operations Center, building upon the Tactical Air Control Center developed in Vietnam to support targets picked by the Tactical Air Control Party (TACP). Together, it was known as the Tactical Air Control System. During DESERT STORM the employment of airpower shifted from supporting tactical targets selected by ground troops to employing fighters and bombers more strategically, targeting enemy centers of gravity. Air mobility was there to enable the unprecedented mobilization, with members of the 1702nd MOBSS working from an ALCC right next to the AOC.

By the time it was over, the Air Force decided it was better to have strategic airlift and air refueling in the same major command, and MAC was redesignated Air Mobility Command. Planning for exercises and contingencies became an AMC responsibility at the Tanker Airlift Control Center. Some airmen left the 1702nd MOBSS to go stand up the Tanker Airlift Control Center. Most were left behind without a mission.

After DESERT STORM, the newly activated Air Combat Command wanted to codify the Air Operations Center concept. They developed the entire AOC to be deployable, capable of moving itself to wherever the conflict might be.

To match this desired capability AMC reassigned the 1702nd MOBSS to the newly created 615th Air Mobility Operations Group. The squadron was redesignated the 615th Air Mobility Operations Squadron to match their parent organization, and the mission of the AMOS was changed to reflect ACC’s deployable AOC concept. The AMOS deployed as a self-contained air mobility command and control unit, with shelters and communications equipment capable of planning and executing missions where TACC couldn’t reach. They called it an Air Mobility Element.

With the activation of the 615th AMOS, the responsibility for controlling TACPs transferred to Air Force Special Operations Command and Havens had no billet left for him in the squadron.

Not wanting to lose his experience the squadron cross-trained him into an Operations Resource Management position. He, along with other members of the 615th AMOS, deployed an AME to coordinate the massive airlift necessary to support the planned Haiti intervention during Operation UPHOLD DEMOCRACY. The AME along with the entire 612nd AOC relocated to Pope Air Force Base for the operation. It was one of the only times an entire AOC deployed.

Man receives award

Senior Master Sgt. Gene Havens receives 15th Air Mobility Operations Squadron's 2003 Senior Non-Commissioned Officer of Year at Travis Air Force Base, California. (courtesy photo)

ACC abandoned the deployable AOC concept, but the AME remained with the 615th AMOS and their sister squadron deploying in just about every major operation in Europe and Africa through the 1990s in operations like RESTORE HOPE, VIGILANT WARRIOR, SUPPORT HOPE, and ALLIED FORCE.

The 90s were a time of cultural change for the AMOS. As tankers were brought into AMC in 1992 so then did tanker planners need to join the AMOS. The approach to tanker employment that came from years of General Curtis LeMay’s Strategic Air Command was not an easy fit into the squadron at first. Nor was the tanker planner’s continued deployment to the middle east to support Operation SOUTHERN WATCH.  

The retirement of the C-141 Starlifter aircraft, and the introduction of the C-17 Globemaster III aircraft, made it difficult to find airlifters for the squadron’s manning documents; combined with the C-130 Hercules aircraft’s transfer from AMC to ACC, it was difficult to build a cohesive team.

By 1996, C-130s were back in AMC and their planners in the AMOS along with nearly a hundred communications troops. The squadrons within the Air Mobility Operations Group were reorganized and what used to be the Air Mobility Communications Squadron was folded into the AMOS along with their missions. Now, the AMOS deployed AMEs, but were just as often deploying to support the communications needs of the Tactical Airlift Control Elements. These Theater Direct Communications were used to establish connectivity during Operation JOINT FORGE, and in Camp Doha, Kuwait while the AMEs were deployed to support Hurricanes Georges and Mitch in Central America.

One of the lessons learned from Operation DELIBERATE FORCE was the enduring challenge of having the air mobility command and control element separate from the rest of the fighting. The AMOS’s developed an integrated division that could operate in the AOC alongside the fighter and bomber planners, called the Air Mobility Division. By the end of the 20th century the AMOS was as likely to be sitting in the AMD helping plan theater air mobility missions as they were deployed in an AME executing TACC missions.

In 2000, the Air Operations Center was declared a weapons system and a series of standing AOCs were activated across the world to control day-to-day air operations for their combatant commanders. During contingencies these AOC would need additional support; ACC planned to create augmentation units that were ready to add additional manpower to the AOC. AMC followed suit, making this an additional duty of the AMOS in addition to their traditional AME role. ACC was not able to find the manning to make their active duty augmentation units, so today the AMOS remains the only active duty AOC augmentation in the Air Force.

After 9/11, the AMOS’s provided the bulk of initial cadre to operate the Combined Air Operations Center. It would continue to do so for the next 15 years.

Senior Master Sgt. Havens retired in 2005. Still an important part of the squadron, a billet was converted to a civilian position so he could remain part of the AMOS as a Unit Training Manager. Training became a larger focus for the squadron as they traveled to theater AOCs during exercises and contingencies to train and work alongside permanent party AMD personnel. He championed the installation of the squadron’s Weapons System Suite, a miniaturized version of the AOC weapons system that runs the same baseline configuration software, allowing the AMOS to maintain proficiency at home.

When the squadron wasn’t deployed to U.S. Central Command they were deployed to the 601st AOC or 612nd AOC to support natural disaster relief at home and in abroad. The 2005 Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, the 2011 earthquake in Japan, and the 2013 typhoon in the Philippines all benefited from AMOS assistance.

321st AMOS main lobby

The 321st Air Mobility Operations Squadron main lobby at Travis Air Force Base, California, May 6, 2025. Pictured are multiple awards and honors that the squadron has received since its inception. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Scott Warner)

In 2012, the 615th CRW was deactivated. The 15th AMOS reorganized under the 621st CRW and was redesignated the 321st AMOS in 2015. By now the deployments to the Middle East slowed and additional AMOS units in the Air National Guard were activated to help with disaster relief operations. Into the 2020s the squadron has refocused on contingency operations, deploying to help Operation ALLIES REFUGE and to support Operation ATLANTIC RESOLVE.

Gene’s role transitioned from Unit Training Manager to Weapons System Suite element lead, resource advisor, and facility manager, now fully in charge of the old hospital he started working in nearly three decades ago, preserving memories of a squadron that has evolved multiple times over the years as AMC has honed the Global Air Mobility Support System to bring Rapid Global Mobility to the Joint fight.

He’s eager to tell people about the squadron’s legacy, even if the average Airmen has a hard time understanding the old terminology or operations. Understandably so, because the history of the AMOS is the history of AMC, USTRANSCOM, and the how the United States Air Force has delivered power and hope across the world over the past fifty years.

In many ways the squadron has changed, but if you ask Gene, the mission is pretty much the same as it’s always been: we’re all still part of USTRANSCOM’s Joint Deployment Distribution Enterprise; the only difference is that over the years the AMOS has moved a little bit closer to the cargo’s final destination. Change is the only constant for the AMOS, but as the squadron refocuses to support Great Power Competition, it will almost certainly continue to offer unparalleled operational mobility planners ready to control and win the global high-end fight.