YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — The 374th Airlift Wing is taking a look at its processes, programs and paperwork this week.
In the year’s only scheduled Unit Compliance Exercise — which began Tuesday and was to end Thursday — Yokota’s inspector general team reviewed all procedures and standards, ensuring they complied with Air Force regulations.
“This type of inspection is mostly for commanders to gauge their unit’s compliance with command policies, regulations and directives,” said Lt. Col. Richard Dieringer, the wing’s deputy inspector general.
“With the Air Force’s current expeditionary construct and the constant turnover of personnel in an overseas environment, these programs and requirements can fall off the scope and lack the priority needed to sustain compliance. The UCE will provide unit and wing leadership with a snapshot of where we stand in regards to these key directives.”
Unlike an Operational Readiness Exercise, in which deployment capabilities and military readiness are scrutinized, the UCE is a little less physically demanding. It normally doesn’t have basewide impact, either.
Each unit designates an individual to serve on the exercise-evaluation team. During drills, those individuals are placed under the wing IG for the duration of an inspection, said 1st Lt. Warren Comer, a 374th Airlift Wing spokesman.
“Only certain airmen are affected, mostly the people conducting the exercise itself,” he said. “Members of the EET actually go through the checklist itself with their unit commanders to ensure they are in compliance.”
Dieringer said the UCE is based on required legal and governmental standards, which include U.S. federal and host-nation laws, regulatory policies and Department of Defense, Air Force and Pacific Air Forces instructions.
The IG assesses unit compliance in those areas through various published materials, he added. Full-spectrum threat-response and security-forces exercises are additional measuring tools but were not employed for this UCE, he said.
Typically, the base’s IG office hands out an overall grade about two weeks after the exercise. It’s based on the Air Force’s standard five-tier evaluation system, which delivers marks for outstanding, excellent, satisfactory, marginal and unsatisfactory performances.
Wing IG officials also may identify superior individual performances within a unit following the UCE, Dieringer said.
PACAF conducts a Unit Compliance Inspection once every three years. Yokota’s last examination took place in January 2004, when it earned an “excellent” rating.
“Exercising from time to time is important to be able to assess the strengths and weaknesses of a unit, wing or base,” Dieringer said.
“With all of the competing priorities we deal with every day, focusing on these items is a challenge. UCEs refocus our attention and steer us back into compliance so that when a UCI does come around, we are prepared and ready. … As with any exercise, a UCE should help limit or eliminate the typical last-minute ‘spin-up’ encountered just prior to an inspection.”
