ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. —
The chief of the Air Force Reserve and commander of Air Force Reserve Command highlighted AFRC’s critical contributions to the Total Force during the 2023 Air Force Association Warfare Symposium in Denver March 8.
Lt. Gen. John Healy joined Lt. Gen. Michael Loh, director of the Air National Guard, and Brig. Gen. Neil Richardson, Air Mobility Command’s deputy director of Operations, Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration, during a panel discussion titled Building High End Readiness: Deploying Under the Air Force Generation Model. Lt. Gen. James Slife, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, also joined the group as a guest panelist.
Healy began his remarks by highlighting the upcoming 75th anniversary of the Air Force Reserve.
“The Reserve has been providing shoulder-to-shoulder support with surge capabilities and capacities for 75 years, just short of a year after the Air Force split off from the Army Air Corps,” he said. “When we look towards how we are going to transform into this new AFFORGEN model, we’ll fall right in line with it just like we always do.”
During the panel discussion, Healy discussed the importance of predictability for Reserve Citizen Airmen, their families and their civilian employees.
“What we are seeing with the AFFORGEN model is more of that discipline predictability enterprise-wide,” he said.
Healy also touted the skills and talents Reservists bring to every Air Force career field.
“One of the most important impacts we have going forward is being able to provide backfill to in-garrison support,” he said. “We have been part of the Total Force for the last 75 years. AFFORGEN is going to take a Total Force effort to get to the next milestones, and the Reserve is all in on it.”
Addressing the topic of building teams who train and deploy together without major impacts to the wings, Healy said, “This is a great opportunity for some of our AFR wings who are classic associates to provide those backfills to maintain steady daily operations for deployed units.”
The AFRC commander said he sees a lot of opportunities for Reserve Citizen Airmen to provide support to all major commands and combatant commands and he believes active components can also provide support to Reserve units that deploy.
“One of the things I am most excited about with AFFORGEN is it gives us the chance to synchronize our abilities when it comes to reset and repair,” Healy said. “Multiple units from one wing can go out to together, come back together, reset, work on their internal processes and train together, just as the model shows. It reduces overall requirements for that wing.”
In addition to being a part of the AFFORGEN panel, Healy participated in a media roundtable where he covered his priorities, Ready Now and Transforming for the Future, how Reserve Citizen Airmen are doing every single job their active-duty counterparts are doing and how the Reserve is prioritizing every dollar spent from planning to execution to be fully accountable for the money appropriated to the Reserve from Congress.
In his closing remarks, he thanked the audience for coming and reiterated how proud he is to serve as the commander for more than 70,000 Reserve Citizen Airmen.
