Security forces combat Airmen benefit from Rodeo experience

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Carolyn Herrick
  • Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam Public Affairs
JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. --  Four Airmen from the 647th Security Forces Squadron at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, competed against international air forces during the 2011 Air Mobility Rodeo July 24 to 29.

Twenty-six countries and international agencies attended and competed in the Rodeo, hosted by Air Mobility Command.

"We competed in the combat weapons event, combat tactics event, and combat endurance event," said Tech. Sgt. Michael Skonetski, the 647th SFS team leader. "(Senior Airman Chris) Menefee and I also competed in the advanced marksman competition."

Although the joint-base security forces unit did not come home with any first-place awards, they competed very well in the events, Skonetski said.

"After each event, we each felt pretty good. It was a great course for us to go through to refresh our skills and become better for when we do get tasked," he said.

They will be able to implement those skills when they're deployed; and they learned some good tactics, techniques and procedures to bring back to the unit, according to the 8-year NCO.

"When we were doing our lessons learned with instructors and other teams, we learned from them and they learned from us, too," he said.

"I think what we did here is related to what the security forces role or job is to do, real world," said Tech. Sgt. Pablo Gonzalez, 647th SFS assistant Bravo flight chief.

"These were realistic missions that we might be tasked to do in the future," Gonzalez said. "It very well might make a difference - it might make the difference between surviving and not surviving."

In combat tactics, for instance, they did small convoys, during which their job was to protect the U.S. Aid workers and bring everyone back in one piece, including their own team members.

"It was fantastic, very realistic," said Gonzalez, who has been in the Air Force for 12 years. "We had a good time."

Menefee, a 647th SFS fire team member, said the hardest part of the Rodeo was the anticipation of the events.

"Each event was timed, and you could only be at the event during a certain time frame," Menefee said. "You couldn't be there too early or too late."

They also didn't exactly know what each event would entail, because the operational orders were purposefully vague, and they didn't know what they were going to see or face in the scenario.

"This was the first time I've gone to an event where you don't have any training first, no instruction - you just go perform, then you get critiqued," Menefee said. "It's not about training, it's just, 'here's the benchmark' and then you see where you stand in your career field."

The scenarios were very realistic compared to what they would typically see in the Air Force, he said. For a typical deployment, they're put on a four-to-12-man team and deploy with other Airmen from other units. Then they're expected to work together seamlessly for six months.

"That's what makes us different from other services," Menefee said. "It emulates deployment as closely as possible."

"Everybody throughout their career has different experiences and different ways of doing things," said Senior Airman Jeff Kristek, 647th SFS armorer. "Combining those and working with others, you learn better ways of doing things. Getting critiqued by the cadre was beneficial because they told us about scenarios they faced while deployed and the things they do. It was fun, I had a good time."

"It's crazy to see that people from within your unit - four rogue defenders you put together with different job titles, in for different amounts of time, with different training - can come together as a team, perform, and still feel good about (them)selves after an event," Skonetski said. "If we went on a tasking right now as a team, we wouldn't have any issues completing the mission."