JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska -- The 3rd Air Expeditionary Wing from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, will conduct Exercise Agile Reaper 24-1 in the Indo-Pacific region from April 10 to 17, 2024.
AR 24-1 is an effort from JBER’s 3rd AEW to exercise Agile Combat Employment, rehearse capabilities in an operationally relevant environment and to provide air dominance, global mobility and command and control with a hub and spoke system based out of Andersen Air Force Base, Guam.
This will be the second-ever iteration of the exercise as well as the second time units from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson will form the 3rd AEW to provide command and control of the exercise at Andersen AFB.
“In this iteration, we will be testing the limits of what a cohesive 3rd AEW is capable of in a combat-representative environment based on our experience on Guam at Andersen AFB and Tinian last year,” said U.S. Air Force Col. Kevin Jamieson, 3rd Wing and 3rd Air Expeditionary Wing commander. “We conducted more training in preparation for AR 24-1 this year at Exercise Bamboo Eagle at Nellis AFB, Nevada, and mission-ready Airman training at JBER, so our goal with this exercise is continuing to build an enhanced warfighting team with each training event we accomplish.”
In addition to organic units from the 673rd Air Base Wing and 3rd Wing, the 3rd AEW will also include members of the 15th Wing at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, 157th Air Refueling Wing at Pease Air National Guard Base, New Hampshire, and total-force partners with the U.S. Air Force Reserve’s 477th Fighter Group, and the 168th and 176th Wings from the Alaska National Guard.
In all, approximately 800 Airmen are expected to fly, maintain and support aircraft operating at five separate locations during AR 24-1. The exercise will use combat-representative roles and processes to deliberately target all participants as a training audience and stress the force’s capability to generate combat air power in an expeditious manner across the Pacific.
This exercise will act as an Air Force Force Generation (AFFORGEN) certifying training event for the 3rd AEW, a requirement for the deployment of forces. AFFORGEN is an evolving concept that allows the USAF to ensure force-generation models are aligned to the way the service intends to operate in the future high-end fight.
“We improve with each exercise and each repetition. I’m proud of this team already, and I look forward to seeing what we can accomplish in the Indo-Pacific,” said Jamieson. “We are also incredibly thankful to the local communities for their help in ensuring we can accomplish our certification training here again this year.”
Media members requesting access to cover AR 24-1 can reach out to the 3rd Air Expeditionary Wing public affairs team at 907-551-8995 or jber.pa.mediaops@us.af.mil.