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TESTIMONY OF
BRIGADIER GENERAL NORMAN R. SEIP
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS AND TRAINING
DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR AIR AND SPACE
DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS
AND
THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, UNCONVENTIONAL THREATS AND CAPABILITIES
HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

REGARDING
JOINT NATIONAL TRAINING CAPABILITY

 March 18, 2004
 

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you about Air Force involvement in the Joint National Training Capability and its benefit to our Air and Space warriors.

I am Brigadier General Norman Seip, Deputy Director of Operations and Training for Headquarters Air Force.  The Operations and Training Directorate is responsible for overseeing the development and implementation of the Air Force's contribution to the Joint National Training Capability, known as JNTC.

First, the Air Force has long appreciated the value and the complexity of Joint Training.  Conflicts and contingency operations in the past 15 years, particularly in the Global War on Terrorism, have highlighted the necessity of fighting jointly.  Therefore the Air Force has fully embraced the challenge to create the JNTC and better enable our forces to train like we fight.

This past January, the Air Force, along with Army, Marine, Navy, and Special Forces warfighters, participated in the first-ever JNTC event.  We had aircrew flying in Joint Close Air Support missions in concert with Army forces at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, California.  Instrumentation on the aircraft provided takeoff-to-landing live monitoring and mission-debrief recordings, not only for the aircrew and exercise control personnel, but also for command and control personnel at the Nellis Air Force Base Combined Air Operations Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, the Army leadership at Fort Irwin, and Joint Forces Command at Suffolk, Virginia.

The training event was further enhanced by integrating Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance inputs from a simulated E-8 "JSTARS" aircraft at the Distributed Mission Operations Center, Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico and simulated Special Forces gunship and helicopters at Hurlburt Air Base, Florida.

As you can see, even this first JNTC event created a dynamic training venue for the services without the usual costly requirement to transport every participant, their equipment, and maintainers to a single location.  Also with the integration of sophisticated virtual and computer-generated assets, the training was more complete and realistic than we have attained before.

Of course, all these benefits are not without its challenges.  The Air Force is actively engaged with the other Services and Joint Force Command to address the creation of forward-thinking technology standards as well as equitable funding responsibilities.

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate that the Air Force is fully participating in the development of the Joint National Training Capability and we look forward to increasingly effective joint training events for our Air and Space warriors.