The 3rd Combat Communications Group’s Combat Readiness School at Tinker AFB, Okla., last week graduated its final class of battlefield communications specialists before ceasing operations. “It’s been a good feeling to teach airmen skills that could potentially save their lives,” said school Commandant MSgt. Matt Smith in Tinker’s Aug. 3 release. Air Force Space Command plans to inactivate the 3rd CCG to match reductions in the combat air forces. Under the plan, the 3rd CCG’s activities would shift to the 5th CCG at Robins AFB, Ga., which has its own combat readiness school. Tinker’s school began its two-week pre-deployment course in the early 1990s to teach airmen to establish and defend a communications emplacement in the field, states the release. The course, taught six times a year, culminated in a 36-hour field exercise. The final class graduated on July 27. (Tinker report by Micah Garbarino)
The defense intelligence community has tried three times in the past decade to build a “common intelligence picture”—a single data stream providing the information that commanders need to make decisions about the battlefield. The first two attempts failed. But officials say things are different today.