The Air Force is setting up a new Battlefield Airmen Training Group to oversee the selection and training of elite combat ground forces airmen such as pararescuemen and combat controllers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a June 3 release, the Air Force said the new unit will be under the 37th Training Wing at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas, and will replace the 342nd Training Squadron. The training group was officially activated June 2, the Air Force said, but the five new training squadrons it will oversee will be activated later this summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group will consolidate and streamline training for conventional and special operations ground forces, such as combat controllers, pararescuemen, special operations weathermen and tactical air control party airmen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The release said the newly\u00a0–<\/span>formed unit will focus on training combat airmen “who integrate air and ground operations on the joint battlefield.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Our mission at the Battlefield Airmen Training Group is to select, train and mentor airmen for global combat operations,” Col. Ronald Stenger, a special tactics officer and the first commander of the new group, said in the release. “We will breed quiet professionals, infused with a warrior ethos and fueled by scholarship and innovation.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The new unit hopes to reduce costs and increase efficiencies during the training process, the release said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under the old system, trainees would return to Joint Base San Antonio, which served as a “hub,” after finishing one school before getting the order to\u00a0attend\u00a0their next school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But now, trainees will head directly from one unit to another as they finish each phase of their training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Air Force said the new system will\u00a0improve processes and programs for recruiting combat airmen, and\u00a0managing manpower and leadership, equipment, infrastructure and the curricula for\u00a0training them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The training group’s five new squadrons include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Air Force said that at any given time, it is training anywhere from\u00a0<\/span>1,000 to and <\/span>1,500 prospective\u00a0battlefield airmen. But only about 20 percent of those will actually graduate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tragedy struck the the squadron that the training group will replace, the\u00a0342nd Training Squadron,\u00a0on April 8 when its commander, Lt. Col. William Schroeder, was shot and killed by pararescue student Technical Sgt. Steven Bellino, who then killed himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Air Force is setting up a Battlefield Airmen Training Group to oversee the selection of elite combat ground forces airmen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":43412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":67,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[16,67],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3320],"class_list":["post-21520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-your-air-force"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"C2LMMIING5FOZCIWSIWZBGO2TY","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-air-force\/2016\/06\/06\/new-unit-to-train-battlefield-airmen-replacing-lackland-s-342nd\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n