Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala. -- Faculty and staff from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, traveled to Maxwell with hopes of gaining inspiration from Air University for their own academic programs, Dec. 13, 2017, Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.
Retired Maj. Gen. Randal Fullhart, VPISU commandant of cadets, Patrick Huber, VPISU Department of Physics professor and Robert Viers, VPISU Utilities and Building Systems electrical supervisor toured the Curtis E. LeMay Center of Doctrine Development and Education’s War Gaming Institute and received an AU mission brief.
The faculty and staff of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University are currently developing their own war gaming operation center for their Reserve Officer Training Cadets and other students. They visited AU to gain firsthand experience on how the program is successfully run.
“The idea is to learn more on how the various disciplines would work together to deal with security issues facing our country and facing our world,” said Fullhart. “It’s a concept that we call ‘integrated security’ and the idea is to have something similar to the Air Force War Gaming Institute, where students can come together for an exercise, and learn about each other’s disciplines and how to use those against a particular problem.”
Huber said he thought the most valuable takeaway was how large the staff must be to run a war gaming center.
The university has a facility in place for the war gaming center. Operations are scheduled to begin this spring.
When looking for inspiration for their own war gaming institute, Fullhart was well aware of the resources AU holds. Before retiring and becoming the Commandant of Cadets at VPISU, Fullhart was the commander of AU’s Air Command and Staff College from 2002 to 2006.
He said he was grateful to the Air Force for the opportunity to visit. It was also somewhat of a homecoming for this prior Maxwell resident.
He said there are many things about Maxwell and AU that will never need to change, it’s comforting to know that AU is still on the leading edge of technology, policy and strategic thinking and doctrine.