Air Force’s top cop visits

  • Published
  • By Steve Milligan
  • Nucleus staff
KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, New Mexico --  Brig. Gen. Mary Kay Hertog, director of security forces for the Air Force, paid a visit to Kirtland AFB Aug. 18 and 19.

As director, she is the central figure for force protection in the Air Force and responsible for more than 30,000 active duty and Reserve security forces worldwide. She provides policy and oversight for protection of Air Force installations from terrorism, criminal acts, sabotage and acts of war. She is also responsible for the training and equipping of security forces to ensure they are ready to meet any contingency or exercise.

General Hertog started her career here as a second lieutenant and later was the 377th Security Forces commander, so she has a long history associated with Kirtland AFB.

The purpose of her visit was to meet her end-goal of getting out to all of the security forces units in the Air Force and let everyone know what is happening in the career field and what is being done for them.

"I want everyone to know that I work for them and what we are doing to make life better for them," General Hertog said. "I'm also here to thank them for a job well done, not only here at the home station but while they are deployed."

General Hertog said she doesn't see many changes in the future for security forces. No plans to split the career field into law enforcement and security as was done in the past and no plans to pipeline Airmen into the shred outs of dog handling and combat arms directly from technical school. Our Airmen need to reach a level of maturity first and that is why there are minimum grade and time in service requirements in place.

One area where there have been and will be changes, the general said, is in the area of pre-deployment training. There have been some significant changes in the training for "in lieu of" missions with the Army.

"We've been able to work with the Army to tailor the training for our people and we have a big say in how the training is conducted. We've been able to eliminate many of the training days," she said, "because I don't believe our Airmen should spend one day more than needed away from home and family when they have to deploy.

"We make changes all the time and implement those changes immediately and therefore our training has become more responsive and flexible," General Hertog said.

"We're one of the most stressed career fields in the Air Force," she said. "Not the only one but we are the largest and we're doing everything we can to try and relieve that stress.

"In the last nine months we've seen more air expeditionary force deployments than in lieu of deployments," General Hertog said. "This includes more outside the wire, as we call it, or base perimeter missions. I feel that to better prepare our Airmen for a more combat-stressed environment, we need a course that adequately prepares them for combat.

"That involves a shoot-and-move course and not static targets. We're developing one now and are ready to start testing it soon at one of our bases."

General Hertog said, "It's good to come home. I've run into so many people that I've had the opportunity of helping shape their careers over the years, colonels that worked for me as second lieutenants, and I feel that I've had a part in growing my own replacement. To me, that's what leadership is all about, growing your own replacement and making a difference."