SPOKANE, Wash. – Airmen with the Washington Air National Guard and the Royal Thai Air Force assembled in western Washington May 19-24 to finalize plans for Enduring Partners 2025, an exercise involving RTAF and the Washington Air National Guard to be held this summer in Thailand.
During the recent conference, Washington Guard Airmen worked alongside their Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) counterparts in small groups to finalize their respective training objectives and determine the best way to achieve them through academics, workshops, and a combined field exercise.
“I appreciate and am impressed by everybody,” said Gp. Capt. Nat Kamintra, RTAF delegation head. “I truly trust from the bottom of my heart, I think this year … the exercise will be great.”
The working groups focused on air operations, ground-controlled interception, Air Force Special Warfare, cyber, combat communications, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, medical logistics, intelligence, and space.
“The way that both the Royal Thai Air Force and our U.S. counterparts were able to integrate right away and get busy … was just so impressive to me, and tells me just how great this exercise is going to be,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Nate Masunaga, head of the Washington Air National Guard final planning conference delegation.
This year’s exercise will follow the Multidomain Operations concept, integrating mission impacts across air, space and cyber domains, and will include UH-60 Black Hawk pilots with the Washington Army National Guard.
“Already, [there are] talks about how we can make it better in the future, how we can expand on it,” Masunaga said. “I look forward to so many more iterations, and I just hope that I can be a part of it as many times as I can.”
Enduring Partners 2025 is scheduled from Aug. 18-29 in Nakhon Ratchasima Province.