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Air Force’s ‘Top Cop’ kicks off Expeditionary Center's 15th anniversary speaker series

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Scott T. Sturkol
  • U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center Public Affairs
FORT DIX, N.J. --  Nearly 100 people filled in the U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center's Grace Peterson Hall here on March 26 as the Air Force's top cop addressed the latest news and information in the security forces career field.

The Expeditionary Center audience was small in comparison to the thousands who watched the briefing at 15 locations worldwide by Brig. Gen. Mary Kay Hertog, Air Force Director of Security Forces at the Pentagon. General Hertog kicked off the Expeditionary Center's Professional Development Speaker Series as part of the center's 15th anniversary observance.

In her one-hour teleconferenced briefing to Airmen around the world, General Hertog spoke about many issues to include deployments, leadership and more. One of the people in attendance, a former member of the center's 421st Combat Training Squadron, said he was enlightened by what he heard in the briefing.

"It was really encouraging for a guy in the field to hear that our leaders are concerned about our Airmen who are going to deploy for war," said Chief Master Sgt. (Retired) Gary Kelly, currently the assistant operations officer for McGuire Air Force Base's 87th Security Forces Squadron. Chief Kelly served as the superintendent of the 421st CTS from September 1998 to December 2003.

"From my previous experience in the 421st CTS, we didn't hear things like that from our senior leaders years ago," he added.

In addition to her one-hour briefing, General Hertog also received a tour of the Expeditionary Center's facilities and training venues. Tech. Sgt. Jon Tourville, a security forces instructor from the 421st CTS knew he was going to be driving for General Hertog on her visit, but he didn't know she would be reenlisting him that same day.

"It was really cool," Sergeant Tourville said. " It was actually kind of the spur of the moment for me. Honestly it's really great she did the reenlistment and took time out of her schedule to do it. Six more years - hooah!"

The "hooah" reaction seemed to be what many members of the Expeditionary Center had for General Hertog during her day at the center. Though her speaking engagement was video-teleconferenced world-wide, some of the biggest reaction from her visit came from within the walls of the EC.

"It's always good to meet the top cop, have a voice and show how effective our training is," said Staff Sgt. James Chubb, also a security forces instructor for 421st CTS. "It was great that we could show her a live combatives demonstration of what we do instead of her seeing it in a briefing or in an after-action report. She actually was able to see how the training is affecting our security forces students."

From the center's Mobility Operations School, Senior Master Sgt. Troy Coville led the effort to show General Hertog their mobile command, control and communications training facility. He said the opportunity to teach Air Force leaders about the training the center provides for the mobility air force community is always beneficial.

"It's a great opportunity - no matter what Air Force specialty we get in here - to give them an insight into what we are doing being that since it's such a non-standard job that we do," Sergeant Coville said. "When she came in to our area, she said she had never been inside a Hard-sided Expandable Lightweight Air Mobile Shelter (HELAMS) before. That was a great opportunity to educate her on its capabilities. I think she walked away from here learning something and that's really our objective -- to teach and educate people on what we do."

As part of the same effort for MOS, Tech. Sgt. Adrian McDonough showed General Hertog MOS' new Small Package Initial Communications Element (SPICE) Course.

"It was another great opportunity to show the relevance of the SPICE to somebody who would be outside the communications career field like security forces -- particularly with the intrusion detection," Sergeant McDonough said. "It was great that someone such as General Hertog was able to see the value SPICE brings to security forces and others. We talked about class size, class length, how it applies to opening the airbase and that force construct. We also highlighted on how it related specifically to the general and her troops."

Staff Sgt. Joshua Sager, instructor in MOS' Mobile Command, Control and Communications Systems Course, said he believes General Hertog learned more overall about how mobile communicators and security forces work together.

"We showed we're providing today's warfighter with reliable and secure short- and long-range communications that are needed and required to complete the mission," Sergeant Sager said.

As far as her impressions of the Expeditionary Center, General Hertog said she liked what she saw and wished the center a happy 15th anniversary.

"You're the advanced combat skills people," General Hertog said. "You provide that great service for us.

"And also let me just say congratulations on 15 great years," she said. "You've gotten better as the years progress. I'm glad to be a customer of the Expeditionary Center and I'm so grateful that you're doing the top-off training that I need to have you do for our security forces. I wish you great success in the next 15 years because I think you're only going to evolve and get better!"