ACC leadership visits Mountain Home AFB

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Whitney Gillespie
  • 366th Fighter Wing
MOUNTAIN HOME AIR FORCE BASE, Idaho --  

General Adrian Spain, commander of Air Combat Command, and Chief Master Sgt. Jeremy Unterseher, ACC command chief, visited Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, Dec. 15, 2025, to recognize the Gunfighter’s contributions to the mission.

The visit began with a mission briefing where Spain discussed current and emerging mission requirements, and counter-unmanned aerial system efforts. Leaders also highlighted ongoing range and airspace modernization initiatives designed to ensure Airmen can train how they will fight against advanced threats.

Spain spoke directly with local civic leaders, underscoring the strong partnership between the base and the surrounding community. The meeting focused on a shared responsibility for safety, transparency and sustaining the training environment critical to mission readiness.

“Installations don’t succeed on their own,” Spain said. “Mountain Home’s partnership with local leaders and the community is a force multiplier that directly strengthens mission readiness.”

Spain’s priorities include readiness across all domains, warfighting excellence, adapting to the strategic environment, bringing the future forward, and empowering leaders.

Throughout the visit, the ACC team emphasized Mountain Home’s critical role in advancing those priorities by engaging with Airmen across the wing on their ability to generate, sustain and deploy lethal combat capability, while also recognizing Airmen whose actions directly translate to readiness and lethality across the force.

During his visit, Spain recognized three Airmen for outstanding performance, highlighting their impact on mission execution at home and abroad.

One of those Airmen, Tech. Sgt. Daniel Chapman, a quality assurance inspector assigned to the 366th Maintenance Group, was recognized for continuous excellence during a year-long deployment, where he led a team of inspectors executing thousands of evaluations and resolving critical discrepancies under demanding conditions. In the absence of platform-specific personnel, he stepped up to support emergent mission requirements and later coordinated complex aircraft recovery operations, directly contributing to combat readiness and operational success.

Spain noted that Airmen who take the initiative in high-pressure environments exemplify the professionalism and adaptability required to prevail in future conflicts.

“Mountain Home exemplifies what we need in Air Combat Command — disciplined Airmen, lethal capability and a relentless focus on readiness,” Spain said. “The Airmen in this wing clearly understand the operational environment and are optimizing their resources to prepare for what comes next.”

Spain also visited the 266th Range and Airspace Operations Squadron where leaders detailed how the squadron directly enables combat air force readiness through advanced, contested training across the electromagnetic spectrum. The briefing highlighted the unit’s role in providing degraded and operationally limited training environments using electronic warfare threat systems, jammers and advanced network challenges that replicate conditions Airmen are likely to face in high-end conflict.

Airmen also discussed ongoing efforts to modernize range capabilities and expand the Mountain Home Range Complex, including coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration, to link neighboring airspaces. These initiatives are designed to provide the scale, complexity and realism required to prepare forces to operate against peer adversaries while sustaining the training needed to support global deployment cycles.

“Realistic training is foundational to lethality,” Unterseher said. “What I saw here directly supports our ability to win in a contested environment.”

While Spain conducted stops across the installation, Unterseher visited the 366th Munitions Squadron, engaging directly with Airmen responsible for building, sustaining and delivering weapons that underpin the wing’s combat capability.

“Our munitions Airmen are central to lethality,” Unterseher said. “They work behind the scenes, often under intense timelines, to ensure combat-ready weapons are available whenever and wherever they’re needed.”

Additional discussions focused on installation sustainment and resilience, including fuel infrastructure and power systems that directly affect sortie generation and combat capability. Spain later met with senior enlisted leaders to discuss force development, quality of life and ensuring Airmen remain ready, resilient and lethal.

  “Combat power starts with people,” Spain said. “When Airmen are trained, supported and trusted, they deliver decisive effects.”

The visit reinforced ACC’s commitment to align installation readiness, modernization, and Airmen’s development with the Air Force’s broader effort to optimize for the future fight and deliver credible, lethal airpower anytime, anywhere.