JOINT BASE CHARLESTON, S.C. –
The maintainers’ red-tinted faces began to perspire as the rumbling sounds of the C-17 Globemaster III engines filled the air. The only option was to complete the task at hand, and the loadmasters were eager and determined to do so.
In an effort to better prepare for wartime scenarios, loadmasters from the 15th and 16th Airlift Squadrons teamed up with the North Charleston Police Department to conduct a training exercise using the police department’s Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles, or MRAPs, at Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina, Sept. 16, 2022.
“Preparedness,” said Staff Sgt. Christian Magliocca, 15th AS air and land loadmaster. “That was the name of the game for today.”
To simulate a wartime scenario, loadmasters were tasked with attentively measuring the dimensions of two MRAPs and loading them onto a C-17 Globemaster III in a timely manner.
“We want to make sure our loadmasters are as capable and ready as they need to be for when they go down range,” Magliocca said. “We want them to have the confidence to be able to accomplish something similar to this exercise whenever they’re out there with hard deadlines.”
Ready for any challenge, the loadmasters welcomed the opportunity to train with local law enforcement.
“We wanted to do some abnormal training,” Magliocca said. “We work with the Army, Navy, and DoD partners a lot, so we thought it’d be a good idea to reach out to the community and get the North Charleston Police involved.”
Personnel from the NCPD trained alongside the loadmasters, operating the MRAPs.
“We got an opportunity that we don’t get often and got to practice skills like tight proximity parking and low-speed maneuvering,” said Kyle Jamison, NCPD technology unit supervisor. “We were excited to accept the invitation to do some training with Air Force personnel.”
Overall, both parties were able to benefit from one another, strengthening Joint Base Charleston’s partnership with the local community and making future collaborative efforts a reality going forward.
“I believe this was a great experience for all of us,” Magliocca said. “Both parties benefited from doing something that we haven’t done before.”
For Magliocca, the partnership between the NCPD and the Air Force community is bigger than the training.
“I think community outreach is important,” Magliocca said. “Showing the public that we work with the citizens of Charleston and aren’t just flying planes over their houses, as well as wanting to be involved as much as we can with them is very important.”
According to Jamison, the NCPD and Joint Base Charleston look forward to collaborating with each other again soon.
“We loved this opportunity to be able to come out here and work with Air Force personnel, and we hope we can work together more often,” Jamison said. “We would make ourselves available as often as we can to do more training events like this.”