BUCKLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- Exercises are an important component of the active-component’s drive to remain combat-ready and IMAs often play a part. Whether you’re an IMA performing your AT and IDTs each year to support your owning organization’s exercise or you volunteer to help elsewhere (thank you for your volunteerism!), your involvement greatly assists the active component by filling deficiencies in their Time-Phased Force Deployment Data (TPFDD), enhancing their warfighting capability, and assists with planning for the employment of forces and requirements for crises and sustained operations.
If you are thinking about participating in an exercise but your unit is not hosting one, you can look for volunteer opportunities by logging on to ARCNet and visiting the Volunteer Reserve System page. The VRS is where requisitioners can post, and volunteers can find, opportunities for short-term, funded missions. IMAs can search for opportunities by a variety of factors (specific dates, ranks, AFSCs, locations, keywords) and can track their application status within the system.
Once you’ve found an exercise to volunteer for, gaining your supervisor’s and commander’s approval is the next step in the process. This is accomplished by generating a Statement of Understanding (SOU) between you and your unit. An SOU template is available for download in the Resources section of the HQ RIO website: http://www.arpc.afrc.af.mil/Portals/4/DRIO/RIO-Volunteer-SOU-AEF-Non-AEFwULN-ExercisewULN.pdf.
You must also be wartime ready (“green-to go” in readiness-speak), determine the duty status you’ll be in during the exercise, and get funding information from the host unit. For colonels and above, additional steps are also required to obtain AFRC/CV approval.
The next step is to provide the SOU and all other information to your HQ RIO detachment. This will begin the process of generating your AROWS-R and CED orders. Your detachment will review the package and coordinate with HQ RIO/IPR (our Personnel Readiness team). IPR, in turn, coordinates with the AFRC FGC. Once approved to support an exercise, you will be placed up against a Unit Line Number of the TPFDD. Following the exercise, ensure your EX support is reflected in your annual evaluation.
The 2016 revision of the Guide for IRs, coming this August, will provide more information on this process. Until then, the subject matter experts at your detachment and the HQ RIO/IPR are available to answer any questions you may have. Any questions specific to a posted vacancy should be directed to the point of contact listed on the advertisement.
Please keep in mind that this is a lengthy process. It takes a team of people to ensure your CED order is processed and you should start early to allow sufficient time to process the order and get you to the fight. HQ RIO is the ONLY organization that is authorized to cut orders (AT, RPA, MPA,CED) for IRs. As always, please remember that members are not authorized to move until orders or VOCO are in hand.