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AF advisors help restore Iraqi AF College

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Sanjay Allen
  • Air Component Coordination Element-Iraq Public Affairs
TIKRIT AIR BASE, Iraq --  United States air advisors with the Iraq Training and Advisory Mission-Air Force are partnering with the staff of the recently reopened Iraqi Air Force College to ensure a successful return to developing Iraqi air force officers.

Tikrit AB is the original location of the college and advisors here are helping the Iraqis with the basics of a normal university program of study, such as how to build a curriculum, organize a schedule and classrooms on a day-to-day basis in the same buildings the school operated from before the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom in the spring of 2003.

The college reopened Sept. 1 when Iraqi air force cadets returned after temporarily operating jointly with the Iraqi army in Ar Rustamiyah since February 2007.

"We've been working very hard for about the past nine months to bring the academy up to the place where it can open back up and start their process of commissioning so that two to three years down the road they can graduate with a commission and specialty skill and start serving their air force," said Brig. Gen. Scott Hanson, ITAM-AF director and 321st Air Expeditionary Wing commander.

"Tikrit has always been the traditional home of their air force college," he said. "It's a parallel to our U.S. Air Force Academy. It's a place where the Iraqi air force assesses their officers as they run them through basic military training, English language training and academics in technical skills as well as history and military studies."

Many of the advisors here are graduates of the U.S. Air Force Academy, like Lt. Col. Brian Lewis, 321st Expeditionary Mission Support Advisory Group deputy commander, who also works with the college staff -- including some who were graduates of the original Iraqi Air Force College -- to advise them using their own experience.

"I'm proud of my academy experience, and feel it is an honor to assist air advisors from all of our commissioning sources to aid our Iraqi partners," said Colonel Lewis, who is deployed from Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., and a native of Amherst, N.H.

"We try to advise them based on the knowledge that we have on how a commissioning source should run based on our own experience in the United States," said Maj. Israel Figueroa, 321st EMSAG college advisor, deployed from AFROTC Detachment 755 at the University of Puerto Rico. "We want them to have a quality institution where they're producing quality officers. Not only pilots, but also support officers for the Iraqi air force."

They do this by meeting with the school's senior staff and instructors to develop plans for the immediate future and long-term goals, which are to establish a school where the air force can provide officer training in one place similar to the U.S. Air Force Academy.

"This academy will be the future of the Iraqi air force, the leaders of the air force, maybe 10 or 12 years from now," said Staff Brig. Gen. Ali Hassan, commander and dean of the Iraqi Air Force College. "They will not come from overseas or from another nation; they will be from this academy."

Until the infrastructure here can support more cadets, training for ground support officers is being held at Taji AB, while the cadets here are slated to become pilots in the growing Iraqi air force. Here they will go through a heavy dose of English language training as well as courses in aircraft structure, aerial navigation, aviation theory, weather forecasting and more. Over the next three years, there are plans to ensure cadets here will graduate with a bachelor's degree.

Restoring this school and helping the Iraqis set up a curriculum for their commissioning source is something Major Figueroa is proud to be a part of.

"It's something that I always keep in the back of my mind because I believe we're making history here," said the San Juan, Puerto Rico native. "We're reopening their original air force college and preparing the first class to graduate since the war. I would love for this school to grow and become a great academy, something that the Iraqi air force can be proud of."