HURLBURT FIELD, Fl. —
Air Commandos all through Air Drive Particular Operations Command will bid farewell to Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind on July 2nd, as he prepares to depart AFSOC to function the Superintendent, United States Air Drive Academy, Colorado Springs, Colorado.
When he assumed command in December 2022, one among his first actions was to deal with the greater than 22,000 complete power and civilian Air Commandos worldwide. In his preliminary communication, the thirteenth Commander of AFSOC famous their excellent dedication to the mission, the Air Drive core values, and their oath to the Structure of america.
“Equally inspiring is your devotion to the professionalism and excessive requirements essential to uphold our sacred belief to the American public,” he stated. “Your service is clearly making an influence for our nation, and we are going to deal with enhancing your high quality of service.”
Bauernfeind adopted by by modernizing missions, such because the retirement of the ultimate operational MC-130H Fight Talon II and carrying the mission over to the MC-130J Commando II aircrews, maintainers and assist groups.
The final additionally took on the problem of wing standardization throughout his command. In March 2023, 5 wings assigned to AFSOC applied the wing air workers (A-staff) construction. The brand new construction lowered the executive burden on the squadron stage to permit them to deal with the mission. AFSOC additionally established a brand new headquarters directorate, A7, Air Commando Growth in April 2023, designed to offer coverage and oversight for the way Air Commandos intentionally practice, train, expertise, and educate for deployments.
As well as, AFSOC executed Train Talon Spear, the command’s first Small Unmanned Aerial Techniques collaboration train. It marked step one for AFSOC on its path towards modernization by the Adaptive Airborne Enterprise (A2E) idea. The train marked the start of the evolution from utilizing the MQ-9 Reaper platform completely for its intelligence gathering and strike capabilities to a node (cell management heart) in a distributed command and management idea, furthering AFSOC’s energy projection capabilities.
Subsequent, Bauernfeind addressed Air Commandos and their households.
“We acknowledge the challenges and sacrifices you and your households make to serve this nice nation, and we are going to deal with enhancing your high quality of life,” he stated.
He achieved this by enhancements to the Built-in Resiliency Optimization Community, which inspired communication between serving to companies and enabled coordination inside the psychological, social, bodily, and religious resiliency pillars. This effort allowed consolidation of assist efforts to deal with Air Commandos.
He additionally advocated for infrastructure enhancements when he tackled the site visitors congestion situation at Hurlburt Discipline, inviting neighborhood leaders and state and county officers to a number of roundtable discussions to brainstorm options to the extremely congested Freeway 98 close to the bottom which might restrict mission effectiveness for AFSOC’s alert necessities.
Bauernfeind additionally offered the imaginative and prescient for the opening of the Hurlburt Discipline Memorial Air Park to the general public for the primary time in 20 years, permitting guests to come back face-to-face with the plane, mission and tales – previous, current and future. Static plane are displayed alongside memorials and informational plaques to offer perception into the women and men who served in AFSOC.
Bauernfeind concluded his introduction by addressing the transformation of the command.
He helmed the command through the ongoing transformation of AFSOC, which concerned the continued growth of the power era cycle, implementation of mission command, development of Particular Operations Process Teams and creation of multi-domain theater-focused squadrons.
Moreover, the primary activated Particular Operations Theater Air Operations Squadron was launched, which permits AFSOC to bolster the AFSOF distinctive capabilities provided to Theater Particular Operation Instructions in addition to Theater Air Elements, adapting to the ever-changing operational panorama.
“Right now is a pivotal time to serve in AFSOC as we navigate a strategic inflection level and proceed the work of reworking the command,” he stated. “Whereas we face many challenges, we’re assured in our future due to your dedication to our mission and progressive spirit.”
These initiatives, together with numerous others, will proceed as the final passes command to his successor.
Secure journey Sir!
By Lucelia Ball, Air Drive Particular Operations Command Public Affairs
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