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Texas Alamo Wing ready 'to fly, fight and win'

By Minnie Jones, 433rd Airlift Wing Public Affairs / Published May 20, 2015

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JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND -- A 433rd Airlift Wing C-5A Galaxy aircraft and a 927th Air Refueling Wing KC-135 Stratotanker from MacDill Air Force Base, Florida left here May 15 enroute to Hilo, Hawaii for the wing's first major training exercise dubbed "Aloha Stampede."

More than 140 members of several squadrons from within the wing, including some in support roles processed through a deployment line May 14, prior to departing to the exercise location.  On May15, the KC-135 and C-5A arrived at the Hilo International Airport in Hawaii to begin the training.

"Under the new inspection plan, the wing commander is responsible for showing the wing is ready. This exercise is just one key piece of ensuring that this wing can do the jobs it's tasked with and provide combat ready Airmen," said Col. Lee E. Merkle, 433rd Operations Group commander and troop commander for "Aloha Stampede."

"Aloha Stampede" is the first time the 433rd Airlift Wing has combined training and a fly-away exercise.

The purpose of the exercise was two-fold, one: to provide mission-ready aircrews to conduct overseas air, land and air-refueling missions, and two: provide deployable members with ground training from numerous agencies within the wing at the deployed location.

Training included egress non-ejection, self and aid and buddy care, land and water survival training, air-refueling,  cargo preparation,  and increment monitoring of cargo for inspection during all phases of the flyaway to include pre-deployment, deployment and redeployment.

The 433rd Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron was also players on this exercise, honing their skills in the care and transporting the wounded to major medical facilities where they can receive further medical care.

Although training was geared towards operations personnel, there were a number support units benefiting from the exercise as well, such as the 26th and 74th Aerial Port Squadrons, 433rd Force Support Squadron and the 433rd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron.

Capt. Michael Medrano, 433rd Operations Group chief operations plans officer, is responsible for the planning all the non-standard C-5 tasking, talked about some of the challenges the wing faced with putting an exercise of this size together. 

"We started back in December with execution in May, being a Reserve wing - one of the challenges was getting information out to everyone all at once because of everyone's different schedules and civilian jobs.  But at the end of the day everything came together quite nicely," said Medrano.