DREST trains Airmen for the fight Published Aug. 13, 2009 By Tech. Sgt. J. LaVoie 460th Space Wing Public Affairs BUCKLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- Buckley Air Force Base Deployment Ready Expeditionary Skills Training graduated 40 Airmen Aug. 7, the program's largest class so far. To date, 165 personnel have been trained. The class, which prepares Buckley Airmen for deployments, is three days long. The first day of training is in a classroom; however, days two and three are spent practicing the skills in a field training environment. "By preparing them for Army training we are giving them an advantage for Combat Skills Training and their deployment," said Tech. Sgt. John Mere, Deployment Ready Expeditionary Skills Training NCO in charge who deployed for 11 months as Civil Affairs with the Army. "When they arrive they will know the lingo as well as basic skills, like how to hold a weapon," he added. "I wish I would have gone through something like this prior to Combat Skills Training." This recent class was mostly civil engineer Airmen. "It's helpful because when you are deployed we can be asked to go outside the wire or on a convey and the class teaches us what you can encounter," said Staff Sgt. James Grunhard, 460th Civil Engineer Squadron emergency management specialist, who deployed to Kirkuk, Iraq, in 2006. "We learned to work as a team." In 2008 about 250 people graduated DREST at Buckley; Sergeant Mere hopes to top that number in 2009. Click here to download an August 2009 DREST photo story.