Over 200 Airmen from the Delaware Air Guard's 166th Airlift Wing begin Air Force exercise in Michigan this weekend

About 230 Airmen from the Delaware Air National Guard's 166th Airlift Wing will begin several days of training in an Air Force Operational Readiness Exercise when they deploy this weekend from New Castle to the ANG Combat Readiness Training Center in Alpena, Mich.

An advance echelon team, or ADVON, of about 50 Airmen will depart for Alpena on Friday August 3 to perform initial site setup tasks prior to the main body of about 180 personnel who will follow on the morning of Saturday August 4.

The Airmen will travel aboard C-130 and C-17 military aircraft to Michigan, and are expected to return home in two groups on August 8 and 9.

The purpose of the ORE is to promote excellence in training in an atmosphere that purposely contains enough unpredictability to stress the mind and body, while testing teamwork and pushing members' ability to survive and operate while performing our mission in a simulated combat environment.

The Delaware Air Guard Airmen will be joined at the ORE by about the same number of Airmen from our ANG sister unit, the 117th Air Refueling Wing in Birmingham, Ala. The wings will combine into an expeditionary wing for training purposes for the exercise, with the 166th AW acting as the lead unit.

In addition, about 40 Exercise Evaluation Team members from various units will deploy to give guidance and evaluate the combined deployed wing.

The 166th AW will have another ORE, currently scheduled to occur September 2013, at the Gulfport CRTC in Miss.

The OREs are preparation for the Operational Readiness Inspection scheduled for June 2014 with over 300 wing Airmen participating. The wing's last ORI was March-April 2009 and was held at the Alpena CRTC.

The Delaware Air National Guard is a reserve component of the U.S. Air Force with 1,100 positions under command of the Governor of Delaware, or the President of the United States when mobilized. The Delaware ANG has been serving Delaware and the United States of America since 1946.

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