Air Mobility Command Planning and Preparation

  • Published
  • By SSgt. Kim Barrera
  • Airman Magazine

 

  “We’re trying to make sure we’re aligning priorities across the board, not just giving everyone a piece of the pie, but making sure we’re all moving in the same direction.”

- Capt. Bryan Spears, AMC A9 operations research analyst and lead assessor for Mobility Guardian 2025

 

  Before the first C-17 Globemaster engine fires up in a contested theater, medics triage patients midair and a single pallet moves across the Pacific, Air Mobility Command's planning effort is already in motion.    

  The Department-Level Exercise (DLE) series isn't a single event. It's a proving ground: a place to test ideas, stretch capability and expose friction points that might otherwise go unseen. Behind every iteration is AMC, laying the groundwork for global mobility long before conflict demands it. 

  “We’re trying to make sure we’re aligning priorities across the board, not just giving everyone a piece of the pie, but making sure we’re all moving in the same direction,” said Capt. Bryan Spears, an operations research analyst with AMC A9 and lead assessor for Mobility Guardian 2025.   

Capt. Bryan Spears, Air Mobility Command’s A9 directorate operations research analyst and the lead assessor for exercise Mobility Guardian 2025, poses for a portrait May 29, 2025, at Scott Air Force Base, Ill.(U.S. Air Force photo by Tyler Prince)

U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Makayla Killian, 35th Munitions Squadron stockpile crew chief, checks a sensor alignment pin on a GBU-54 bomb during exercise Resolute Force Pacific (REFORPAC) 2025 at Misawa Air Base, Japan, Aug. 7, 2025. REFORPAC validates Pacific Air Forces’ capacity to lead large-scale, multinational contingency operations with more than 12,000 personnel and 400 aircraft being mobilized. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Andre Medina)

  Coordinating a large-scale exercise means more than setting dates and sending aircraft. AMC planners engage early with combatant commands to identify mobility requirements, operational gaps and theater-specific challenges. Planners incorporate a range of inputs from across the joint force, including operational constraints, partner nation coordination and integration timelines, making the planning effort multidimensional. 

  He said preparations for MG25 began almost immediately after MG23 wrapped. “Mobility Guardian 25 is a year and a half, two years in the making. As soon as we called it good on MG23, we were starting to set our eyes on MG25.” 

  "The exercises are getting bigger and bigger and gaining more and more momentum," Spears said. “As these evolve, our ways of assessing and getting after them needs to evolve as well.” 
 
  To support that evolution, Spears highlighted tools like Envision and Mattermost, which enhance how data is collected and used. Real-time communication and sentiment analysis allow planners to shape reports and responses mid-execution.  

  “We can create ways that they can make those observations known,” he said. “We can actually get them in an actionable working group, a lessons learned working group. The more observations we get, the louder the squeaky wheel is, and the more grease it gets.” 
 
 

  “I think what the Department-Level Exercise series is doing is allowing us to build readiness, increase our ability to respond globally in an agile manner and to be able to work with our joint and allied partners in a way that allows us to have confidence that we can do what we say we're going to do.”

- Gen. Adrian Spain, Air Combat Command commander

 
  This feedback loop feeds directly into the operations assessment report, a product that guides commander training and informs congressional understanding. It also enables AMC to refine training guidance and resource allocations for future iterations.  
 
  Gen. Adrian Spain, deputy chief of staff for operations at Headquarters U.S. Air Force, framed the broader significance.  
 
  "I think what the Department-Level Exercise series is doing is allowing us to build readiness, increase our ability to respond globally in an agile manner and to be able to work with our joint and allied partners in a way that allows us to have confidence that we can do what we say we're going to do," Spain said. 

Gen. Adrian L. Spain, Commander, Air Combat Command, Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia. As Commander, he is responsible for organizing, training, equipping and maintaining combat-ready air, cyberspace and electromagnetic spectrum forces for rapid deployment and employment while ensuring strategic air defense forces are ready to meet the challenges of peacetime air sovereignty and wartime defense..(U.S. Air Force photo)

621st CRW shows off mobility expertise during DLE. Airmen with the 521st Contingency Response Squadron, stationed out of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, work together to guard and unload a C-5M Super Galaxy aircraft during the Air Force’s 2025 Department-Level Exercise series at Port of Moses Lake, Washington, July 4, 2025. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Scott Warner)

  “We’ve been executing all of these planning conferences, tabletop exercises and meeting all together so that we can make sure that we’re on the same page when it comes to the assumption that we’re building for the exercise the way we intended to integrate.”

- Col. Andrew “Bull” Miller, AMC director of operations, strategic deterrence and nuclear integration

 

  Col. Andrew “Bull” Miller, AMC director of operations, strategic deterrence and nuclear integration, echoed that deliberate approach. "Over the last year or so, we’ve spent a lot of time connecting with other organizations, cross-MAJCOM, within the joint environment and with allies and partners,” he said. “We can learn as much as possible from the opportunities that we have this summer.”    

  That connectivity extends into planning conferences, tabletop exercises and recurring engagement designed to align expectations. These events allow AMC to deconflict objectives and ensure unity of effort across components.  

  “We’ve been executing all of these planning conferences, tabletop exercises and meeting all together so that we can make sure that we’re on the same page when it comes to the assumption that we’re building for the exercise the way we intended to integrate,” Miller said.  

Col. Andrew "Bull" Miller, Air Mobility Command’s director of operations, strategic deterrence and nuclear integration, and the lead planner for exercise Mobility Guardian 2025

U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Joseph Smith, 164th Airlift Wing flying crew chief, adjusts cargo rollers after unloading cargo in support of exercise Resolute Force Pacific (REFORPAC) 2025. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Andre Medina)

  “It was definitely a good eye-opener for me that if these contingency operations happen, how am I going to handle it. Understanding that what I take from this exercise is going to impact the rest of my career.”

- Senior Airman Breanna Parvin, 375th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron aeromedical evacuation technician

 
  AMC planners also work to ensure that real-world constraints such as limited assets, operations tempo and emerging threats are baked into scenario design. This requires balancing realism with available resources and identifying what lessons are worth prioritizing. 
 
  For Airmen like Senior Airman Breanna Parvin, those plans translate into hands-on readiness. 
 
  “This was my first exercise doing things like this,” said Parvin, an aeromedical evacuation technician with the 375thh Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron. “So, it was extremely beneficial to me as a new air medical evacuation technician.”  

  She described providing care in the air with limited resources and uncertain patient conditions, a challenge that shaped her outlook. 
 
  "It was definitely a good eye-opener for me that if these contingency operations happen, how am I going to handle it,” she said. “Understanding that what I take from this exercise is going to impact the rest of my career." 
 
  From command-level planners to the Airmen delivering care at altitude, AMC’s groundwork ensures the force isn't just prepared. It’s already moving.  

Senior Airman Breanna Parvin, 375th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron aeromedical evacuation technician, poses for a portrait May 30, 2025, at Scott Air Force Base, Ill.(U.S. Air Force photo by Tyler Prince)

 
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