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Total Force Continuum team visits Travis

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. James Hodgman
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  The Air Force’s Total Force Continuum team visited Travis Air Force Base, California, Aug. 21 – 23 to observe operations and learn how to best implement total force integration.

During the visit, the team conducted focus groups, met with base leadership and held a town hall with 64 Airmen, addressing several topics including retention concerns, preparing for future threats and ensuring the Air Force implements TFI properly.

Total force integration refers to Airmen from different components, such as the active-duty Air Force, Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve working together to meet mission objectives. Travis AFB is the seventh location to host a site visit and displays TFI daily with the Total Force Support Squadron, which was created when the 349th FSS and 60th FSS merged in March. Since the merger, active-duty and Reserve Airmen have provided ID card and administrative services in one location for all members of Travis; more than 26,000 service members, military retirees, veterans and their families.

It’s also common to see Reservists working alongside their active-duty counterparts at Travis to maintain aircraft and generate sorties. From Jan. 1 to Aug. 24, the total force team at Travis has enabled 4,766 sorties, including missions in support of Air Mobility Command’s largest exercise, Mobility Guardian, as well Operations Inherent Resolve and Freedom’s Sentinel.

“We are here to try and figure out what the health of (component) associations is, and to learn what the resource challenges we face are, so we can maximize the use of all components to create the most war-fighting capability we can as an Air Force for combatant commanders,” said Brig. Gen. Richard Casto, special assistant to the Chief Air Force Reserve and military deputy to the Total Force Continuum, deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and requirements U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C.

Casto said he was impressed by how well active-duty and Reserve Airmen come together to ensure mission success at Travis.

“The level of integrated partnership at the group level and below here is incredibly noteworthy,” said Casto. “It proves for each weapon system, at varying degrees based on necessity, the level of participation required to get the most mission accomplished. If we were going to benchmark something out of Travis, it would be the air operations directive; how Travis applies TFI with multiple weapons systems and multiple components, both with operations and maintenance.”

Whether it’s local flying, deploying a KC-10 Extender or supporting strategic airlift with the C-5M Super Galaxy or C-17 Globemaster III, Travis comes together to get the mission done, he added.

One of the goals for the TFC team is to collect best practices, as well as lessons learned and apply them across the Air Force, said Brig. Gen. Paul Guemmer, military deputy for Total Force Continuum, deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and programs, U.S. Air Force Headquarters, Washington D.C.

“We will apply the lessons we learn to future associations,” said Guemmer. “This is foundational work for how we shape success for future associations which are becoming more and more complex.”

“We’re (also) seeing (a need) for continued growth in (total force) associations because our warfighting capability as a total force is really dependent on how we organize, train and equip and associations are one way to make that more efficient and (makes us) a more capable fighting force,” he added.

A total force association is an agreement between two or more component organizations to share resources to perform a common mission. Currently, the Air Force has 114 formal associations.

The Travis Total Force Support Squadron is one of those associations and one of five integrated force support squadrons across the Air Force, said Guemmer.

The TFC team will compile what it learned with its visit to Travis and previous site visits with the Air Force Chief of Staff, Secretary of the Air Force and other senior leaders. In the future, the team will help develop an Air Staff level framework that provides guidance for preserving associations across major commands.

“We are looking at Air Force mission sets and where we can balance the Total Force across those mission sets to ensure we have the right component mix and the right full-time, part-time mix, as well as civilians to accomplish the mission,” said Guemmer. “There’s a lot of actions we need to take at the major command and Headquarters Air Force level to ensure we’re setting squadrons up for success.”

“It’s all about maximizing capacity to the warfighter,” said Casto