The Air Force has lengthened the capstone event that all recruits face at the end of basic training to make sure that airmen sweat in training so they don’t bleed in war.
The first boot camp class to complete the new three-day PACER FORGE event — short for Primary Agile Combat Employment Range Forward Operations Readiness Generation Exercise — went through the 57-hour event this week, according to the Air Force.
Since March 3, PACER FORGE has lasted three days and two nights, said 37th Training Wing spokesperson Angelina Casarez, and throws trainees into the opening hours of a simulated deployment.
PACER FORGE now includes additional intelligence briefings and requires trainees to work in small teams earlier in the event, Casarez told Task & Purpose.
“Trainees will be provided complex scenarios that include building and defending operating locations, recovering high-value assets, conducting resupply drops and providing Tactical Combat Casualty Care,”Casarez said. “Skills such as radio procedures and building tents learned earlier in BMT [Basic Military Training], will be applied in practical exercises at PACER FORGE.”
Although the trainees have more time to deal with the scenarios they face, they also receive less guidance from their instructors, putting the onus on them to use their critical thinking skills to complete their missions, much like they would during real-world operations, Casarez said.
“Trainees are challenged to make decisions under pressure, manage their time effectively, and adapt their plans as scenarios evolve,” Casarez said.
The extension of PACER FORGE from 36 to 57 hours will not change the amount of sleep that trainees receive during the event, she said.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin described the changes to PACER FORGE as a “game changer” in a post to X on Thursday.
“We’ve taken things to the next level at @USAirForce Basic Military Training, expanding the culminating event to drive home the #WarriorEthos and better prepare Airmen to defend this great country,” Allvin wrote.
David Roza with Air & Space Forces Magazine first reported that PACER FORGE was being extended so that trainees can learn how to operate in small teams, making it harder for enemies to target them.
Lt. Gen. Brian S. Robinson, head of Air Education and Training Command, announced the changes to PACER FORGE on Wednesday while speaking at the Air & Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colorado.
“Instead of being overly prescriptive by [instructors], what happens now is ‘here’s the objectives you’re set to achieve, here’s the resources available to you … you have 57 hours to solve this problem and try to achieve the objective,” Air & Space Forces Magazine quoted Robinson as saying during the symposium.
Air Force Basic Military Training lasts a total of seven-and-a-half weeks. PACER FORGE takes place during the sixth week of training.
“It’s basically a mock deployment for them,” Military Training Instructor Tech Sgt. Shayla Blakeney told Task & Purpose for a 2024 story. “Cadre is the overseer and will give them tidbits of information. But at the end of the day, that environment out there is trainee-led. All of the information that they’ve learned, like the expeditionary things that they learned in weeks 3 and 4, they’re required to execute it out there.”
In 2022, PACER FORGE replaced the Basic Expeditionary Airman Skills Training or BEAST, which was introduced in 2006 as the culminating event of Basic Military Training. The BEAST was a four-day event in which trainees would face scenarios that mirrored what U.S. troops were facing in the Global War on Terrorism, including simulated mortar attacks, roadside bombs, car bombs, unexploded ordnance, and complex attacks.
In PACER FORGE, trainees are organized into smaller and more dispersed teams than they were during the BEAST, according to a 2022 Air Force news release.
“What we are doing is making them [trainees] ready to join any team, to work well together, to solve tough problems, to be good wingmen and teammates, and to innovate,” Col. Jeff Pixley, then commander of the 737th Training Group, said in the news release.
UPDATE: 03/10/2025; this story was updated with additional comments from 37th Training Wing spokesperson Angelina Casarez.
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