Total force integration is key to current and future success

  • Published
  • By Harry J. Lundy
  • Air Combat Command Public Affairs
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. (ACCNS) --  In a memo dated Nov. 24, 2008, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates laid out the policy of total force integration to close the divide between active, reserve and guard components.

Col. Mark McCauley is the commander of 192d Fighter Wing, Virginia Air National Guard, Langley Air Force Base, Va. His unit has worked alongside active duty personnel for several years and supplies the base with experience and knowledge.

"Obviously in the early years of TFI, everyone's inexperienced, everyone is getting trained and you have a lot of novices out there," Colonel McCauley said. "We brought a lot of maintainers with us that are seven-levels, so that type of supervisor relationship really gave a lot of depth to the mission down here."

The 192d provides Langley AFB with knowledge and continuity that stay on station as the active duty element periodically rotates.

"Of anything I can say the guard does, is that it brings the kind of depth, the longevity that can stay, is not going anywhere and we can take that into the future and really make it a total force effort," Colonel McCauley said.

Part-time guard members, employed by local businesses, make for good community relations and allow our nation to have a force that is ready to go to war without having to pay that person every day.

"Economically it is a very sound program to have those guardsmen ready like that," Colonel McCauley said.

The air reserve technician is a position that helps with the total force concept. This is a person that carries the dual status of being a civil servant and a reservist.

Air Force Reserve Commander Lt. Gen. Charles Stenner stated that the ART is the foundation of the reserve unit program.

"Those are the folks that lay the groundwork on a daily basis," he said. "Those air reserve technicians prepare the training plans; prepare the foundation for the organizing, training, and equipping of our reserve unit forces."

General Stenner shared how mobility forces started working together in 1968, the precursor to TFI. Leadership eventually looked at other options of integration and that has evolved into what is taking place today.

"It is working marvelously because we cannot afford in today's world, to have the number of full-time entities that we had in the past," General Stenner said. "We used to have 750,000 Air Force members. We're down to 330,000; 70,000 in the Air Force Reserve and 106,000 in the Guard. That is our Air Force and that includes the military members as well as the civilian members."

Members of the reserve component and the Air National Guard are involved in every mission in Air Combat Command both here stateside and in the AOR.

According to Col. Joe Speckhart, reserve advisor to the director of plans and programs at ACC, the reserve, guard and active components are all working to find ways to be more efficient with budget cuts and fewer resources.

"We are going to continue, through these TFI efforts, to look at the best way we can mix the active component and the reserve component, both the full-time and the part-time, on the equipment that we have, to give the best value and the best combat capability to the warfighter," Colonel Speckhart said.