ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam –
Andersen Airmen are assisting U.S. Marines as they transfer between here and Tinian during Exercise Forager Fury II through mid-December.
Forager Fury II is a Marine contingency exercise that aims to prepare units for real-world combat situations in the Pacific theater and is conducted on the islands of Guam and Tinian.
The 734th Air Mobility Squadron is supporting the Marines with their cargo and passenger movements throughout the exercise. The squadron, which is a tenant unit on Andersen but assigned to Air Mobility Command, estimated they loaded and processed approximately 1,200 passengers and 200 pallets, exceeding their exercise numbers from last year.
"For the 734th AMS, this is business as usual," said 1st Lt. Phillip Wuebold, 734th AMS aerial port assistant officer in charge. "It's kind of a 'practice what you play.' If we can support operations with this kind of magnitude, it will just better prepare us for when we go downrange."
"While the Marines are executing a number of missions in multiple locations, the mission for the Airmen of the 734th AMS is straight-forward: get the people and equipment where it needs to go properly executed and on time," Wuebold said.
When an aircraft arrives on Andersen's flightline as support for the exercise, the air freight cargo processing center Airmen respond and unload the cargo from the aircraft. Depending on the situation and status of passengers on board, the Airmen may also transport them to the passenger terminal as they wait for their next flight.
The 734th AMS Airmen also contribute to the Marine's mission by inspecting their cargo to ensure everything is in working condition , ensuring each item is correctly documented, and loading Marine cargo and passengers before flights depart.
The air terminal operations center also tasks loadmasters to review the load plans for each aircraft, showing the sequence in which the pallets are loaded into certain locations on the planes. Once all of the cargo is loaded, the Transportation Security Administration conducts screenings for the passengers as they board. The Marines then continue their route to Tinian to move forward with the exercise.
"We are used to working on high-priority missions," Weubold said. "This is a great opportunity to showcase how we do things on the flightline on a daily basis."
This article was originally published at:
http://www.andersen.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123372355