Guam Air Guard to hold flagging ceremony

The Guam Air National Guard’s 254th Civil Engineer Squadron is scheduled to hold a Flagging Ceremony on Friday, April 4, at the 36th Wing Parade Ground, Andersen Air Force Base.

This ceremony represents the conversion of the 254 CES from the Primary Base Engineering Emergency Force (Prime BEEF) to the Rapid Engineering Deployable, Heavy Operational Repair Squadron, Engineer (RED HORSE) mission. This conversion will change the primary skill sets from an engineering sustainment to a small scale engineering construction force.

“This is definitely an exciting time for us and we are happy to carry on the flag for the youngest RED HORSE unit in the Air National Guard as we become an Associate unit with the oldest RED HORSE unit in the Air Force,” said Maj. Audie Artero, commander, 254 CES. It is a perfect match, added Artero.

The unit will be an Associate unit with the Air Force’s 554th RED HORSE at Andersen, with current plans to relocate to the Northwest Field. There will be no changes to the current chain-of-command at this time.

The Guam Air National Guard’s 254 CES was federally redesignated from an engineering flight to a squadron on July 1, 1985. This Friday’s event demonstrates the Air Guard’s growth as its Civil Engineer Squadron converts into a RED HORSE squadron.

RED HORSE squadrons provide the Air Force with a highly mobile civil engineering response force to support contingency and special operations worldwide. They are self sufficient, mobile squadrons capable of rapid response and independent operations in remote, high-threat environments worldwide. They provide heavy repair capability and construction support when requirements exceed normal base civil engineer capabilities and where Army engineer support is not readily available. They possess weapons, vehicles/equipment and vehicle maintenance, food service, supply and medical equipment.

Their major wartime responsibilities are to provide a highly mobile, rapidly deployable, civil engineering response force that is self-sufficient to perform heavy damage repair required for recovery of critical Air Force facilities and utility systems, and aircraft launch and recovery. In addition, they accomplish engineer support for bed down of weapon systems required to initiate and sustain operations in an austere bare base environment, including remote hostile locations.

The primary RED HORSE task in peacetime is to train for contingency and wartime operations. They participate regularly in joint chiefs of staff and major command exercises, military operations other than war, and humanitarian civic action programs. They perform training projects which assist base construction efforts while at the same time honing wartime skills.

Units possess special capabilities, such as water-well drilling, explosive demolition, quarry operations, concrete mobile operations, material testing, expedient facility erection, and concrete and asphalt paving. [B][I] (PR)[/I][/B]