Lt. Gen. John P. Healy used the Air, Space and Cyber Conference on Sept. 23 to press the case that the Air Force Reserve is prepared to deploy and sustain operations worldwide, while continuing to adapt how it trains and generates forces.
“My priority from day one has been ‘ready now and transforming for the future’,” Healy said during a panel on Enhancing Readiness and Generating Combat Forces. “It’s critical we are ready all of the time to get out the door and make that [mission] happen.”
Healy, who leads Air Force Reserve Command, appeared alongside Gen. Adrian Spain, commander of Air Combat Command; Maj. Gen. John Klein, assistant deputy chief of staff for operations; and Maj. Gen. Duke Pirak, acting director of the Air National Guard.
Healy said the Air Force’s Air Force Generation (AFFORGEN) rotational model fits the Reserve’s structure better than the previous, ad hoc approach that relied on volunteers to fill short-notice deployments. The shift, he argued, provides predictability for reservists, their families and civilian employers.
“In 2024, the data that we looked at from our assigned Global Force Management Allocation Plan taskings said we met 325% of our taskings,” Healy said. “We were that onsie-twosie crowdsource for the Air Force. AFFORGEN aligns support to our units and makes it more predictable.”
He also acknowledged the enduring challenge of meeting readiness standards with far fewer training days than active-duty airmen receive. Traditional reservists typically serve one weekend a month and two weeks a year.
“Readiness comes at 730 days from start to finish in that two-year cycle for the active component,” he said. “In Reserve speak, that’s roughly 78 to 124 days.”
To close that gap, Healy said the command is organizing support and manning around deployable units of action. He cited the 482nd Fighter Wing at Homestead Air Reserve Base, Florida, as an early unit in the combat wing deployment cycle, giving it additional lead time and resources to meet required standards.
Healy emphasized the Reserve’s role in enabling joint operations, particularly in combat support specialties that underpin expeditionary campaigns. “More than 30,000 Reservists are part of agile combat support,” he said. “We are stacked in capacity.”
He pointed to recent infrastructure projects in the Indo-Pacific, including expeditionary civil engineering on Tinian Island, where a largely Reserve force helped ready the site for future operations—part of the Pentagon’s broader push for dispersed, resilient basing across the theater.
“The depth of capacity that we can provide, that’s how we see ourselves best,” Healy said. “Setting the theater and making sure that we’re ready to go.”
