JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas –
Exercise planners involved with the execution of the 2021 Joint Forces Contracting Exercise met virtually with key stakeholders to discuss key takeaways from the exercise and its future use for preparing contracting professionals for a joint contingency environment.
During the meeting, exercise planners discussed their observations and recommendations for future joint forces contracting exercises with senior leaders from the Mission and Installation Contracting Command, Air Force Installation Contracting Center, and Army Contracting Command.
ACC leaders are in the development phase for future exercises and are applying this feedback to support considerations.
“The exercise was a complete success,” said Diego Forero, a MICC JFCE-21 exercise planner. “Our after-action report captured various observations from the exercise control group, operations and planning, evaluators, and training audience. We achieved the exercise and training objectives with lots of great observations, training experiences and joint interactions, and is a building block to expand the exercise and training objectives. We provided an opportunity for joint training and building those relationships as well as exercising new doctrine and sharing of tactics, techniques and procedures.”
In the exercise planners’ briefing, Forero provided a proposal to establish a 12- to 16- month joint event life cycle for future JFCEs and need for additional resources for the exercise. He also provided exercise planners’ and participants’ observations for the need to continue using virtual resources for planning purposes.
They also mentioned leveraging contracting expertise from external agencies to assist with scenarios, product development and maximizing academics. Exercise planners talked about incorporating joint doctrine and using existing joint exercise tools to enhance training experiences.
There was discussion during the meeting regarding the use of joint contracting detachments as a training audience versus exercising Army and Air Force pure training audiences and expanding the training audience to incorporate contracting battalions and contracting support brigades interaction to increase mission command objectives.
“By far, the most beneficial part of the exercise has been the interaction among the joint team,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Peter O’Neill, director of contracting for the Air Force Installation Contracting Center Operating Location-Air Mobility Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, and the deputy exercise director for JFCE-21. “We’ve had to rely on each other to synchronize efforts both virtually and in-person across a dispersed training audience. Learning each service’s lexicon and approach to planning and contracting has been enlightening.”
Last month, contracting Soldiers from the MICC and their Air Force counterparts spent a week at Fort Hood, Texas. The training audience and exercise control group members for JFCE-21 consisted of Soldiers and Airmen at Fort Hood; JBSA-Fort Sam Houston; Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio; Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina; Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina; Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina; Scott Air Force Base, Illinois; JBSA-Randolph; Fort Riley, Kansas; Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington; Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington; Joint Base Andrews, Maryland; Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho; Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas; Buckley Space Force Base, Colorado; Robins Air Force Base, Georgia; Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma; and Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.
They built professional relationships, conducted theater support contracting and contingency contracting administrative services in a joint environment. The intent of the exercise was to re-invigorate the Army-Air Force contracting partnership and re-validate that joint contract contingency officers can serve as force multipliers to increase warfighter readiness, interoperability, flexibility, and freedom of movement.
“While Army and Air Force contracting have worked together for decades, we’ve recently had a lull in these types of engagements,” O’Neill said. “Regaining the connective tissue with our partners in green has been tremendous. We will build upon lessons learned from this exercise to improve future JFCE iterations. Specifically, we will nest this tactical event with larger operational contract support exercises across multiple combatant commands.”