En-Chartered

After more than one year of coordination, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz on March 3 signed the official charter that gives the US Air Force Expeditionary Center at Ft. Dix, N.J., the responsibility for training airmen in expeditionary combat support roles. “In order to achieve strategic, operational, and tactical objectives unhindered by time, distance, or geography, we must ensure our expeditionary airmen are prepared to deploy and ready to fight,” wrote Schwartz in the charter. For this reason, Schwartz said he has tasked the center “to take the lead” in developing the Air Force’s mobility and combat support capabilities. The charter also defines the center’s span of missions: oversee advanced pre-deployment and readiness training; train future USAF mobility and expeditionary combat support leaders; provide venues for joint and integrated exercises and agile combat support-focused training, such as opening airbases or ports; and be the repository for expeditionary skills lessons learned. The USAF EC was known as the Air Mobility Warfare Center from its inception in May 1994 until March 2007. (Ft. Dix report by TSgt. Scott T. Sturkol)