Buckeye II: Ready for the fight

What does it sound like to be combat-ready in the Great Power Competition? Well, for anyone passing by Youngstown Air Reserve Station between Nov. 2-5, 2024, it sounded like a loudspeaker echoing "Attention on base: Exercise! Exercise! Exercise!"

Beginning with the November Unit Training Assembly weekend and bleeding another two days into the week, the 910th Airlift Wing conducted phase one of Combat Readiness Exercise Buckeye II, roping off the flight line and many buildings on the base to rehearse mission skill sets under fire.

"The combat readiness exercise is supposed to meet our pacing threats along with the national defense strategy," said Paul Booth, the exercise planner for the 910th Airlift Wing's Inspector General office's inspections division. "It's also used to measure our wartime taskings and mission essential tasks."

A combat readiness exercise is a wing-planned, executed and inspected operationally relevant exercise intended to inform commanders of their unit's ability to accomplish the mission in a realistic scenario against peer or near-peer adversaries. The aim is to ensure the combat-readiness of every Airman.

"These exercises are meant to emulate the conditions you could expect during a wartime scenario," said Booth. "And in those scenarios, we all have our specific jobs and tasks we need to do to meet the standard if we are to align with the Chief of Air Force Reserve's intent to improve in many areas of our profession."

Under the supervision of about 30 wing inspection team members sworn in to watch closely and grade fairly, approximately 280 Citizen Airmen, in phase one, played their part in a faux wartime posture maintaining and supporting the 910th AW's tactical airlift mission as the installation underwent and responded to simulated air, ground and cyber attacks.

Phase two of Combat Readiness Exercise Buckeye II will happen at Dobbins Air Force Base, Georgia, Nov. 13-16, 2024, where players will use the installation's expeditionary combat support facilities to meet mission essential tasks in a simulated contested, degraded and operationally-limited environment.