372nd TRS, Det 5: the maintenance community's training source of choice

      The 372d Training Squadron’s Field Training Detachment 5 is located at Barksdale Air Force Base near Bossier City and Shreveport in Northwestern Louisiana.  The vision at Det 5 is to be “The Maintenance Community's Training Source of Choice...Today and Tomorrow."  This allows for the detachment team to “Deliver State-of-the-Art Maintenance and Communication Training to DoD Warfighters and International Partners – Any time, Any place.”

    Master Sgt. James Duffy, Section Chief at Det 5 said, “Our mission and vision allows our footprint across three MAJCOMs to have a significant impact on the B-52 and AFGSC community.  Our instructor cadre’s vast knowledge and experience comes from our diverse team composed of 17 active duty members and one OUTSTANDING civilian.

    The detachment’s production superintendent, Master Sgt. Mark Hughes, further explains, “Our program’s primary beneficiaries are two separate bomb wings; the 2nd Bomb Wing is our ‘home’ host at Barksdale, and our ‘away’ host is the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota.  Our 17 instructors across nine AFSCs instructed 11,964 hours between 215 courses to 780 students in FY 15.”

    The detachment chief, Master Sgt. James Polk, continues. “We have led the way in innovation and process improvement in our continual efforts to update and refresh our material to better support our customers.  We recently added an Advanced Wire Maintenance course to our course catalogue whereby we directly improved local aircraft maintenance processes and eliminated a training deficiency in AFGSC.”  Master Sgt. Polk rounded out with, “All of this is just our ‘day job’ as the best dang detachment in the 372nd!”

   The Electronic Counter Measures instructor, Tech. Sgt. Michael Harvey, added, “Det 5 is heavily involved in our community.  We volunteer annually with our local ‘Paint Your Heart Out’ community project, and our instructors actively mentor our community’s youth populace.  In doing so, we coach a wide range of sports in a range of ages, assist two separate Boy Scout Troops, and lead several children’s and teen’s programs at local churches. Det 5 is invested in bettering our community and our students.”