00:00General Healy, when we last met, you mentioned the Air Force Reserve had recently launched the Reserve Allies Partners Program.
00:11Could you share more about that effort and explain how the Air Force's Reserve Program differs from the National Guard State Partnership Program?
00:21Thanks, sir, for the question. First, I am envious of the State Partnership Program.
00:25And for quite a while, we were looking at what could we do as an Air Force Reserve on par with that.
00:31We had noticed about two years ago that we were doing exercises with the British Royal Air Force Auxiliary doing AeroVACs.
00:41But they were unplanned. They weren't deliberate exercises to emphasize our interoperability.
00:46Last year, during the preparatory for HACTI, a representative case from Hawaii asked me what my relationship was with the Philippine Reserves.
00:56And I told them we had none.
00:57Since that time, we've developed a Reserve Allied and Partners Program.
01:02We've had tremendous acknowledgement and tremendous interest.
01:08Last year at the Royal International Air Tattoo in London, I had two air chiefs from European countries come to me and say,
01:13I want to figure out a way to put my airline pilots who have recently retired back in the seat in a time of war.
01:20I handed my business card and we'll talk further.
01:22There's an overwhelming interest from countries in the Pacific on how do we do integrated defense logistics or leadership, IDLC.
01:32A course we run at Youngstown, Ohio, which is an advanced-based defense course.
01:37There's tremendous interest from the Philippines on our professionalized NCO Corps.
01:42Australia wants to do medical exercises, deliberate medical exercises.
01:46Canada wants to do CE to CE.
01:49So that's essentially how we differ from the state partnership program.
01:53We provide, as I put it to the air chiefs when I meet with them, a virtual buffet of choices with regard to the entire Air Force Reserve in our portfolio.
02:04And what do they want to draw from that?
02:07Where do they want to gain experience, understanding from that?
02:10We absolutely are looking at the successes that the state partnership program has had.
02:16And we're trying to take advantage of those to get up to speed as soon as we can.
02:19We've got no budget for it.
02:20It's out of hide.
02:22But with growth, we'll increase budget as well, sir.
02:25So is it appropriate to say which countries you'd like to target?
02:30Sir, typically what we're looking at is targeting larger Air Forces with established reserves.
02:36So, interestingly enough, for instance, the Royal Air Force Reserve is only 3,000 people.
02:43But then my Air Force Reserve is actually bigger than the Royal Air Force.
02:46So we look at scales in terms of how we can work together.
02:50But specifically, we're trying to go to countries that have an established reserve already.
02:55Very good.
02:56Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Comments