CPTS ready to lasso competition in inaugural event

  • Published
  • By Bob Oldham
  • 19th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
LITTLE ROCK AIR FORCE BASE, Ark. --  While many teams have competed at previous Air Mobility Command RODEO competitions, a three-person team from the 19th Comptroller Squadron will compete in a newly added finance competition for the 2011 Air Mobility Command RODEO.

Tech. Sgt. Adam Rohrer and Staff Sgts. Amber Hunt and Jake Taylor will do battle against 11 other command-wide comptroller squadrons for supremacy and bragging rights at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., next week.

"We've never done it, so you don't know what you're getting into," said Taylor, a six-year veteran of the comptroller career field.

But they have been training, spending hours reviewing equipment lists, possible scenarios they could face in a field exercise and training on war skills, such as self aid and buddy care, weapons familiarization, and an obstacle course.

During the competition, three-member teams deploy to the exercise site where they will be evaluated in each of the following categories: logistics kit/activation/set-up, fitness course, small arms, ability to survive and operate, self aid and buddy care, information security and performance-based scenarios.

"We'll have scenarios where people need to cash a check or have a pay issue, a vendor who is trying to get paid, or we need to get a contract set up to get barriers for the base," said Rohrer, 19th CPTS NCO-in-charge of the financial management flight.

It's all in a day's work for a deployed comptroller. However, the fun begins when they head to the fitness course.

"We set up a mini obstacle course last week," said Hunt, the squadron's NCO-in-charge of financial services flight.

Unit leaders watched as the team members completed the course, which included a 100-yard run with a gas mask on.

"It didn't seem that bad until the end," she said, referring to trying to suck air into a gas mask while maintaining a full run.

While this is the first year comptrollers have competed at RODEO, Taylor said he knows other AMC comptroller teams will be gunning for the base's three-person team because the 19th CPTS has led the command in metrics 14 out of the last 15 months.

"We're like the [New York] Yankees right now," he said. And they hear it from other bases during command-wide conference calls.