362d BRACER FORGE exercise Published Nov. 20, 2024 By Senior Airman Katie McKee 82d TRW Public Affairs SHEPPARD AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- 01:55 The 362d Training Squadron conducted a BRACER FORGE exercise recently to expose Airmen in Training to realistic scenarios as Mission Ready Airmen in the Great Power Competition. Tech. Sgt. Bradley Hockaday, 362d TRS F-15 instructor, and his team of cadre created an eight-hour flightline rescue mission where Airmen applied foundational competencies such as resource management, decision-making, resiliency and teamwork. “BRACER FORGE is an extension of PACER FORGE all the Airmen receive during basic training,” said Hockaday. “It covers a lot of the expeditionary skills that will support ACE concepts in the future. We started with medical care under fire, tourniquets and buddy drags to get our teammates out of danger. We moved on to litter carries and did some individual tactical movements like high crawl, low crawl and rush; then, we did team movements and finished off with shoot-move-communicate exercises.” The final portion of the exercise was a capstone scenario with opposing forces reflecting Agile Combat Employment operations that reinforce critical skills needed for warfighters. “Airmen came out to the airfield and moved to a downed aircraft where they secured it, assessed the aircrew for injuries and then evacuated via 9-line,” said Hockaday. “Every mechanic may be a rifleman at some point. Everyone needs to practice those core skills such as putting a tourniquet on and moving in formations as a team for us to succeed in the future with the GPC.”