U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center Commander Maj Gen John Klein, attending a brief while visiting Yakumo Air Base, Japan, as part of Mobility Guardian 23, July 13, 2023. USAF photo by TSgt Alexander Cook
Maj Gen John Klein, U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center Commander, prepares a pallet at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, Dec. 2, 2023. USAF photo by SrA Victoria Hommel

The USAF Expeditionary Center: Forging Warrior Hearts

By MRS. LAUREN FOSNOT, STAFF WRITER

THE USAFEC BY THE NUMBERS
With more than 14,000 Airmen, the center is comprised of the Air Force Expeditionary Operations School, five AMC wings and two stand-alone groups, including the 515th Air Mobility Operations Wing, the 521st Air Mobility Operations Wing, the 87th Air Base Wing, the 628th Air Base Wing, the 621st Contingency Response Wing, the 43d Air Mobility Operations Group, and the 627th Air Base Group.

The U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center (USAFEC) at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, NJ, plays a vital role in preparing Airmen for the challenges of modern warfare. As a critical component of Air Mobility Command (AMC), the USAFEC serves as the USAF’s Center of Excellence for Expeditionary Agile Combat Support and Rapid Global Mobility training and education.

Maj Gen John Klein, Commander of the USAFEC, explains that the center never ceases to strive to meet its mission of “Airpower … from the Ground Up!”

The USAFEC embodies four core mission sets:

  1. Expeditionary Warfare and Training: to help Airmen excel in complex, often challenging, environments worldwide.
  2. Contingency Response (CR): to ensure Airmen can rapidly deploy to support contingencies and humanitarian crises around the globe.
  3. Enroute Mobility Support: to provide the logistical support needed for effective missions.
  4. Joint Basing Installation Support: to supply the infrastructure needed to optimize support.

According to Klein, the center recently released its fiscal year 2024 (FY24) USAFEC Strategy to strengthen its alignment with the 2023 National Defense Strategy. The FY24 USAFEC Strategy builds upon the previous years’ and focuses on five key lines of effort “to drive the mission and be ready for the high-end FIGHT:”

  1. Forge Warrior Hearts
  2. Integrate Training and Certification
  3. Global Air Mobility Support System (GAMSS) Command, Control, and Connectivity
  4. Hone Next-Generation Capabilities
  5. Transform USAFEC’s Enterprise Management

These components help set the FY24 Strategy’s primary focus on the need to sustain and strengthen U.S. deterrence against the pacing challenge as well as advance a focus on collaboration with a growing network of U.S. allies and partners on shared objectives, Klein stated.

This focus was especially evident in the USAFEC’s participation in Mobility Guardian 2023 (MG23), an AMC-hosted global exercise, in which the center was able to exercise the ability to explode into theater.

“Total Force CR units and newly validated Air Mobility Teams deployed to the first and second island chains, enabling this impressive display of Rapid Global Mobility in the Pacific,” Klein explained. “Our FY24 Strategy solidifies those lessons learned from MG23 and translates them into hard targets to make ourselves venerable and prepared institutionally to prevail in a high-end fight.”

Although consistently exceeding expectations and limits, the USAFEC never leaves safety behind. “We are constantly reviewing our real-world operations and exercises to find ways to improve the safety of our missions,” Klein said, having recently completed a case study from an exercise in September 2022.

The case study reviewed an exercise in which the center’s CR forces were operating out of a bare-base airfield in rural Alaska. According to Klein, the terrain and weather were harsh and unforgiving, underpinning the paramount importance of safety. Overall, there was a period in which the forces could not be transported off a remote island due to weather, leaving them essentially stranded. Fortunately, this mission was an exercise, and the Air Operations Center was able to recover the Airmen without incident.

“What this vignette provides is the imperative to get GAMSS command, control, and connectivity right, so we don’t lose contact with our teams in an Area of Operations as vast as the Pacific,” the Commander asserted.

Klein, who says he “grew up in AMC,” has a background in the Pacific. “I cut my teeth as a pilot and as a young officer flying in and around Asia, and that experience has provided me with an appreciation of the vast expanse of the Pacific,” he said. “And what does that have to do with commanding the USAF Expeditionary Center here in New Jersey? The Expeditionary Center plays an indispensable role in overseas mobility operations. We provide the footprint, structure, and manpower.”

The Commander explains the center also manages GAMSS. GAMSS is the engine that lays the foundation for the logistics of any future conflict. The USAFEC accomplishes this objective by not only providing a footprint that spans 42 locations across 24 countries, but also by bringing to bear the nation’s CR forces. These CR forces can (and have!) quickly deploy anywhere around the globe in support of a contingency or humanitarian crisis. “As we like to say, ‘There is no Air Mobility without Air Mobility Support,’” the Commander stated.

The USAFEC’s mission, “Airpower … from the Ground Up!” holds true as the center never stops aiming high.

“We are on the precipice of something great,” Klein said. “Our team of Airmen have been running hard and fast. I have been out to visit the Airmen in their work centers, on the flightline, in the back of a Herk; I see them and value the work they are doing to harden themselves and prepare AMC for the future.”

As the Commander emphasizes, the dedication of the center and its Airmen is unwavering. Their efforts are a testament to the ongoing commitment of the USAF to maintain readiness and adapt to meet the challenges of an ever-changing world.