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“This is a world-class range that is run very well. The units here in Idaho, along with the range, OCTC [Orchard Combat Training Center], and Mountain Home communities have taken care of us every time we’ve come up here. If we find ourselves in a jam, or need something or don’t know this procedure or that procedure, we get nothing but help here.”-Master Sergeant Daniel Haack, JTAC manager for 11th Marine Regiment, 1st MARDIV

U.S. Marine Corps photo by Corporal Dean Gurule, 17APR2023.

In April 2023, the U.S. Marine Corps launched operation (Exercise) Garnet Rattler, seizing the U.S. Air Force’s gunnery range known as Saylor Creek, in Southern Idaho.

USMC photo by Corporal Dean Gurule, 17APR2023.

The use of the word ‘garnet’ is appropriate because Idaho is officially known as The Gem State. Exercise Garnet Rattler is about training Joint Tactical Air Controllers (JTAC): “Garnet Rattler’s main objective is to take entry level joint terminal attack controllers, forward air controllers, air officers and joint fires observers, and put them in a live-fire environment that has a lot of maneuver flexibility, as well as aviation employment, in order to train realistic scenarios for their entry level controls in the fleet.”-Master Sergeant Daniel Haack, JTAC manager for 11th Marine Regiment, 1st MARDIV

U.S. Marine Corps video report by Corporal Dean Gurule, 29APR2023, note the Idaho Air National Guard’s 124th Fighter Wing/190th Fighter Squadron A-10Cs in action, also, a Mountain Home Air Force Base (AFB) F-15E pilot admits it is all about “…the Air Force and Marines are starting look to the Pacific and preparations for the Near Peer fight…”:

The following USMC videos, recorded (between 10-29APR2023) by Corporal Dean Gurule and Lance Corporal Juan Torres, have been edited by me.

“Rotors comin’ in!”:

Mountain Home AFB F-15E Strike Eagle:

USMC photo by Lance Corporal Juan Torres, 26APR2023.

Machine guns & mortars:

Idaho National Guard photo by Staff Sergeant Joseph Morgan, 25APR2023.

Idaho Air National Guard’s 124th Fighter Wing/190th Fighter Squadron’s A-10C Thunderbolt-2 (remember, the ‘woke’ USAF has been trying to get rid of this awesome aircraft):

Saylor Creek: IDAHO’S TACP/JTACs TRAIN WITH INFANTRY WEAPONS!

U.S. Air Force photo by Technical Sergeant Betty R. Chevalier, 14SEP2022.

Is Winter coming early in the Northern Hemisphere? In September 2022, Talons from Atlantic Southeast Florida decided to migrate to Pacific Northwest Idaho.

U.S. Air Force photo by Technical Sergeant Betty R. Chevalier, 12SEP2022.

The U.S. Air Force’s (USAF) 2d Fighter Training Squadron is based on Tyndall Air Force Base (AFB), in Florida. From the 12th through to the 23rd, of September, the 3rd Generation T-38 Talons flew around Idaho, helping the USAF teach its youngest bird, the 5th Generation F-35A Lightning-2 (which had also flown north from Luke AFB, Arizona), how to fly.

USAF photo by Technical Sergeant Betty R. Chevalier, 12SEP2022.

The airspace over Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, is known as Gunfighter Country. USAF photo by Technical Sergeant Betty R. Chevalier, 16SEP2022.

USAF photo by Technical Sergeant Betty R. Chevalier, 14SEP2022.

According to Captain Ryan ‘Joker’ McCooey, of the 61st Fighter Squadron’s B-Flight, the training over Mountain Home AFB is the final schooling of a long F-35 program taught mainly on Luke AFB: “At the end of their six-to-eight month basic course, students put together all the building blocks we have taught them throughout the course into these Capstone rides where they do both air-to-air and air-to-ground [tactics] during the same sortie. They get to practice all the things we taught them in a large force exercise, integrating with different assets that we don’t always have the ability to do at Luke.”

USAF photo by Technical Sergeant Betty R. Chevalier, 16SEP2022.

Final F-35 training is usually done over Mountain Home AFB, against the F-15E Strike Eagle, but I believe this is the first time the T-38 Talon was involved.

USAF photo by Technical Sergeant Betty R. Chevalier, 12SEP2022.

While over Idaho, the Florida Talons play the ‘bad guy’ (Red Air) against the Arizona Lightning-2s. Playing the bad guy has been the forte of the T-38 trainer for decades, all the way back to the days of the non-declared, non-official, Cold War.

USAF photo by Technical Sergeant Betty R. Chevalier, 12SEP2022.

USAF photo by Technical Sergeant Betty R. Chevalier, 13SEP2022.

While launching from Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, the T-38 Talons helped qualify six F-35A pilots, and help upgrade the qualifications of four other pilots to instructor status.

3rd generation T-38 and a 5th Generation F-35A. USAF photo by Technical Sergeant Betty R. Chevalier, 16SEP2022.

USAF photo by Technical Sergeant Betty R. Chevalier, 13SEP2022.

The concept of aircraft generations was started by U.S. air historian Richard P. Hallion, back in the 1990s, but it wasn’t until Russia adopted the concept that it became standard in the United States (apparently it was Russia who first referred to the USAF F-22 Raptor as a 5th Generation fighter).