ALPENA, Mich. – Airmen from the 124th Fighter Wing, Boise, Idaho, and eight A-10 Thunderbolt II aircraft from the 190th Fighter Squadron arrived at the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center to participate in Agile Rage ’22.
The National Guard Bureau-led exercise, held June 6-19, provides realistic training, mimicking combat environments dictated by the National Defense Strategy.
“Agile Rage is one of the first exercises that we’ve done where we’re executing the Agile Combat Employment mission,” said Maj. Michael Gillis, officer in charge of the 124th Maintenance Squadron. “We’re going to be operating out of the CRTC and sending aircraft from here down to Volk Field, Wisconsin, and back.”
Northern Michigan’s National All-Domain Warfighting Center includes the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center and Camp Grayling Joint Maneuver Training Center. The NADWC encompasses more than 148,000 acres of ground maneuver training area and more than 17,000 square miles of special use airspace.
The purpose of this mission is to increase unit ACE readiness, which is a proactive and reactive operational scheme of maneuver to increase survivability while generating combat power. This new paradigm depends on multi-capable Airmen who can respond quickly and operate in austere locations.
“The primary goal here is training — training for that next fight,” said Gillis. “The fight we’ve been in for the last 20 years could be completely different from our next fight, so this training gives us a glimpse into how we could operate in that new environment.”
Exercise participants will conduct numerous mission-essential tasks during Agile Rage ’22, including joint intelligence operations, airspace control, search and rescue coordination, intra-theater airlift, joint fires, close air support, interdiction of enemy capabilities, and ACE.