Governor Josh Green, M.D.

By Senior Airman Roann Gatdula

The Hawai‘i Air National Guard (HIANG) hosted approximately 1,000 personnel and more than 40 aircraft from across the U.S. and Australia as part of this year’s Sentry Aloha exercise, from Jan. 14-28 on O‘ahu.

Sentry Aloha is a recurring National Guard Bureau exercise hosted by the HIANG’s 154th Wing. It provides tailored, cost-effective and realistic combat training for the Air National Guard, U.S. Air Force and other Department of Defense services, ensuring warfighters possess the skills necessary for both homeland defense and overseas combat.

“For over a quarter-century, the Hawai‘i Air National Guard’s 154th Wing has hosted Sentry Aloha, a premier exercise forging the next generation of airmen,” said Exercise Director, Maj. Michael ‘Deuce’ Oliver. “Sentry Aloha also strengthens our alliances, with regular participation from coalition partners like the Royal Australian, British and Canadian Air Forces. The exercise provides a wealth of realistic training, ensuring the fighter community remains lethal, interoperable and ready to defend the Indo-Pacific.”

Along with the HIANG’s F-22 Raptors and KC-135 Stratotankers, aircraft from six states provided more Stratotankers, F-35 Lightnings, F-15 Eagles, a C-130 Hercules, E-3 Sentries and an MK-58 Hawker Hunter to practice core aerial combat capabilities and strengthen the total-force integration between active-duty, Guard and international partner units. Overall, the exercise had 10 different units participating, 420 flight sorties and over 860 flight hours recorded.

For many visiting personnel, the unique geography of the Hawaiian Islands provided challenges that can’t be replicated in the continental U.S.

“Operating in a tropical climate, vice, where we operate in Wisconsin, when the high tomorrow is going to be negative eight, it’s a very different feeling for how we go to fight, a lot of other factors that we don’t normally deal with, such as the constant potential for rain showers to pop up,” said Capt. Nathan Moll, 115th Fighter Wing F-35 pilot. “Fighting and executing our tactics over water, it’s not something you can do everywhere, so it’s certainly a valuable training exercise for us.”

This level of immersion ensures that members are not just trained but thoroughly prepared to respond to any conflict when called upon, particularly when integrating with partnered units as a unified team.