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December 9, 2008 · The Air Force is expanding its basic military training program from six and half weeks to eight and half weeks. One of those additional two weeks of training will be spent mastering Basic Expeditionary Airmen Skills Training or the BEAST. On Monday, Air Force officials cut the ribbon on the new facility at Lackland and demonstrated some of the programs.
“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. I’m Staff Sergeant Crabtree. what What I want to talk to you about this afternoon is what we call MOP levels. MOP levels stands for Mission Oriented Protective Postures, and that’s basically what we talk about or how we describe when we’re wearing our chemical protective gear,” said Staff Sergeant Crabtree.
Dealing with a chemical or biological attack is just one of the new skills Airmen will learn. They will also be trained to engage the enemy while under fire and learn how to watch out for improvised explosive devices, or IED’s.
“We get to the walk phase; we show them static displays of IED or improvised explosive devices that are common used in the AOR’s, or areas of responsibility,” said Staff Sergeant Seeholzer.
Colonel Ed Westermann is the commander for Air Force Basic military training. He’s confident the BEAST will give Airmen the tools they need to survive their deployment.
“This facility that you see today simulates exactly a down-range forward operating base location, and it will allow our trainees to get real hands on experience in the types of situations, the types of challenges, the types of threats that they’ll face when they deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan,” said Westermann.
The first class of trainees will begin training at the new facility next week. They’re scheduled to graduate in January.
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