Nothing in Afghanistan is easy, but airpower makes it possible. Grinding Out Success By Marc V. Schanz, Senior Editor

combat forces of- said, noting that Paktika’s mountains and ten describe Af- valleys are prime movement areas for ghanistan as the groups coming and going from Pakistan. hardest place on Whether tracking individuals or putting USthe planet to fight a war. Without air- firepower on top of the enemy, air as- power, that task would be almost in- sets are critical to the balance of power conceivably more difficult and deadly. between the coalition and the enemy. “The fight is, I think, ... easier than Talking with airmen across Afghani- Iraq,” said Army Maj. Gary Pina, the stan, stories vary, but all contain a chief of fires for Task Force Currahee, common thread: This conflict is now based at Forward Operating Base Sha- a part of their lives. Deployment after rana, Paktika province, and composed deployment, for nearly a decade, has of elements of the 4th Brigade Combat made the mission intensely personal. Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air In the mountains of Paktika province Assault), from Fort Campbell, Ky. It is by mid-March, the spring and summer rare to see the close combat and pitched fighting season was already ramping street battles many remember from up for the troops and airmen at another places such as Ramadi or Fallujah, he forward operating base, Orgun-E. noted. Afghanistan is a large and not By then, SrA. Eric Shaner, a joint very dense country—and offers a lot terminal attack controller with 2nd of space for the enemy to hide and to Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, carry out operations. 101st Airborne, could cite some of the “We don’t really have a population developing threats. Reports from the issue. ... We have a terrain issue,” he FOBs and outposts nearby suggest the

SrA. Kendall Wilson watches for trouble in the desert sur- rounding a runway in Afghanistan. Wilson is part of a Fly Away Security Team, which provides security for aircraft in remote, unsecured locations.

30 AIR FORCE Magazine / July 2011 USAF photo by TSgt. Emily F. Alley

AIR FORCE Magazine / July 2011 31 Battle of Margah, a firefight at a small combat outpost, on the eastern side of the province, between Army troops and well-armed insurgent fighters swarming the position. The Taliban had counted on catch-

USAF photo by Capt. Erick Saks ing the outpost by surprise, and waited for weather the enemy thought would affect air support, several JTACs and Currahee officers noted. But a pitched battle followed, with mortars, artillery, small arms, and air strikes from USAF fighters and Army helicopters holding back the horde. By the next day, five Americans were wounded (none were killed), while 92 enemy fighters lay dead. Capt. Leif Nordhagen, an A-10 pilot and flight commander with the 74th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron at Kandahar Airfield, is one of the pilots An HH-60G Pave Hawk returns from a mission at a forward operating base. Rotary frequently called on to defend ground lift in Afghanistan is an in-demand commodity. forces under attack, such as the one at Margah. Taliban are gearing up, he said. “[FOB] they said. But their role is to link the Nordhagen and the rest of his squadron Tillman took several rounds today, and efforts in outposts and FOBs across the arrived mere weeks before describing they’re not far from a pretty major traf- country with the airpower flying high the pace of operations to a reporter. The ficking route.” overhead—and it is demanding work. 18 Warthogs in Nordhagen’s unit were Soon, patrols would be going out to steadily ramping up operations, and contact tribal officials and find out if A Small Community each of the unit’s pilots would fly three any local villages had received “night A JTAC’s typical physical mission to five sorties a week. Often they were letters” from Taliban militants—basi- load is between 80 to 90 pounds of flying routine top cover missions, only cally threats against cooperating with equipment. This includes everything to be chopped off to respond to troops- the Afghan government and coalition from spare radio batteries to mortar in-contact calls at some point in their forces, and a prime measurement for tubes, and most of the JTACs have four- to five-hour missions. tracking enemy influence in the region. multiple leg and ankle injuries over their Warthog pilots and support crew are JTACs will often accompany troops into deployments to show for it. closely associated with this war. Most the villages, or stake out the high ground, Both Shaner and Eggleston count of these airmen have been in Afghani- to help maintain a good connection with friends and fellow JTACs among the stan before, many several times—both aerial assets and watch for any trouble. killed and injured in this war, and pointed at Bagram up north and at Kandahar. Shaner is assigned to the 817th Ex- out that the enemy continues to find “It’s a small community, and we’ve peditionary Air Support Operations ways to combat the upsurge in troops. all done this before,” Nordhagen said. Squadron supporting Task Force Cur- Army officers and JTACs in Paktika “We do this a lot, but we all love this rahee in Afghanistan’s restive east and frequently mentioned last October’s mission—the maintainers, the pilots, moves around to support units wherever he and his fellow JTACs are needed. There are never enough JTACs to go around to meet the requirement for clearing missions, air assaults, and even engaging tribal leaders. “It’s not easy.We’re roving assets; we move around to where we are needed. Sometimes they need us on an operation USAF photo by MSgt. Adrian Cadiz in the field. Sometimes we’re back a bit farther from the fight,” said SSgt. James Eggleston, a 10-year veteran JTAC and enlisted battalion air liaison for the White Currahee element at Orgun-E. Shaner and Eggleston are dots of blue in a sea of green, and both simultane- ously professed their love of the job while also noting its difficulties. Being physically isolated from their support structure takes a toll, and cultural clashes Capt. Travis Kuenzi and 1st Lt. Alexander Hanna run the engine start-up procedure with senior Army NCOs are routine, on a C-17 before an air delivery mission in Afghanistan. 32 AIR FORCE Magazine / July 2011 USAF photo by SrA. Sheila deVera

everyone.” Over years of combat, rela- honoring Pedro 66—the call sign of Two F-16s on the flight line at Bagram tionships have developed between the an HH-60 Pave Hawk that crashed in Airfield, Afghanistan. Expeditionary air- A-10 community and the JTACs on the June 2010 during a sortie in Helmand men are familiar with both Bagram and Kandahar from repeated deployments. ground who often have to dial up pilots province. Five airmen died. The A-10 when faced with difficult circumstances. community works closely with rescue In Afghanistan, the A-10 fleet is in crews and the pararescue jumpers who Expeditionary Rescue Squadron com- high demand, as one of USAF’s premier man the often dangerous casualty evacu- mands the detachment of HH-60s at close air support platforms. The aircraft ation and combat search and rescue mis- Kandahar standing alert for combat rack up a lot of flight hours and expend sions across the country. search and rescue and medical evacua- a large number of munitions. tion missions daily. The “Pedros” of the A typical deployment to Afghanistan Things Will Blow Up 26th ERQS, along with the “Guardian will add 800 to 1,000 flying hours to Just down the way from Nordhagen’s Angels”—the PJs and rescue specialists every aircraft, noted 1st Lt. Michael squadron, the new barracks of the 55th of the 46th ERQS—are on call daily Murphy, the officer in charge of the Expeditionary Helicopter Maintenance to respond to scenarios ranging from 74th Expeditionary Aircraft Mainte- Unit is home to a memorial for Pedro 66: combat medical evacuation missions, to nance Unit. A prior-enlisted airman who The Pave Hawk’s wheel chocks hang on a extracting wounded from an overturned came from a background in munitions, wall in the squadron’s break room, above armored vehicle, to transporting Afghan Murphy pointed out the long line of 30 a list of the crew who died in the crash civilians for medical care. mm shells from the Warthog’s famous last summer. First Lt. Andrew Marsh, the Trained in the specialized mission seven-barrel gun that ring the top of OIC for the maintenance shop, said the area of personnel recovery and combat the walls in the EAMU’s shop just off Pave Hawks are put through the wringer search and rescue, often these airmen the flight line. daily, as rotary lift in Afghanistan is are pressed into rotation along with “They were from the last deployment,” an in-demand commodity and the dry, Army helicopters to perform casualty said Murphy, who deployed from Moody dusty environment makes keeping these evacuation missions (CASEVAC) across AFB, Ga. Each shell signified 1,000 aircraft healthy even more challenging. Afghanistan. rounds fired in combat, with the previ- The dust in Afghanistan is finer than the “Some days, it will be quiet. Days on ous rotation firing off approximately sand ginned up back at Davis-Monthan end, even. Then things will blow up,” 147,000 rounds. “They stay busy,” AFB, Ariz., he noted, and engines will Richardson said of the 12-hour-at-a- Murphy said, adding that each aircraft wear out much faster, having to work time watch he and his crews perform. will average a full phase inspection per with the sharp changes in altitude in The squadron’s main element resides deployment to make sure everything is addition to the dust. at Helmand’s Camp Bastion, an area working correctly. Nearby, a dry-erase board with the of southern Afghanistan that has seen The war has taken its toll, and the squadron’s aircraft and mission numbers a great deal of violence in the last year- signs are unmistakable, from the skins showed just how busy they’ve been since and-a-half, as US and coalition forces of aircraft to the memorials to fallen late 2010, when their deployment kicked move into the traditional stronghold of comrades. Nordhagen, and several other off. Sixty-eight saves, 356 sorties, 276 the Taliban. airmen operating out of the west ramp flight hours, in just over three months. “Every day, we are working in a side of Kandahar Airfield, wear a patch Maj. Chris Richardson of the 26th 60-minute window,” Richardson said, AIR FORCE Magazine / July 2011 33 a pilot,” said Capt. Stephen Colletti, the detachment commander for the 46th ERQS element at Kandahar. A prior- enlisted PJ, he anticipated his airmen would be even busier in the coming months, as the fighting season promised

USAF photo by Capt. Erick Saks to rage again. It’s not easy to keep skills balanced, but airmen in this work are used to pressure. “I want my people kept interested. We thrive on pushing ourselves,” Colletti said. “These guys … are not normal cats. We don’t need normal.” There are three active duty HH-60 squadrons in the US, Richardson noted, and everyone in them has been steadily deployed, for months at a time, for the better part of the last decade to Iraq and Afghanistan. “We have volunteers, TSgt. Jonathan Oliver, a joint terminal attack controller, goes over the operation we have [Reservists] and [Air Guards- plan and maps on a remote mountaintop in Laghman province. JTACs often stake men]. But our squadrons have to make out the high ground to maintain good contact with air assets. sure we don’t get people stuck” in one position, he added. Complicating this and when calls come down, crews are cabin as well, used to cut the doors is the need to balance out the experi- geared up and on the flight line in eight off mine-resistant, ambush-protected ence with getting new folks trained minutes. Some of the crew members on vehicles. up back home. alert joked that they could be wheels “We’ve sent guys [on temporary up even faster if the barracks—like a The Business at Hand assignment] just to get them away for firehouse—had a pole to slide down A mid-March visit to Kandahar was a little while,” Richardson said. “You from the second floor. calm, but only days before, multiple don’t want to burn up the A-team, but Down here in Regional Command calls had come in. This is the nature you also have to know that this is a South, the area around Kandahar, and of the war, aircrews and PJs said. commitment.” RC Southwest in nearby Helmand, Mass casualty events such as suicide Back in 2008, Richardson said, eight crews can usually meet that time frame. bombings, Afghan citizens injured, Pave Hawk pilots said no to generous Unlike Army “dust off” helicopters, enemy wounded, flipped vehicles, bonus pay to re-up, after years of grinding which are unarmed, Pave Hawks are marines and soldiers pulled from rotations. “It’s hard. And I can under- not emblazoned with a red cross. the battlefield with multiple missing stand when someone’s had enough. But They are heavily modified for CSAR, limbs—everyone had a story, and most this is the business at hand, and we’ve with .50-caliber heavy machine guns, had recent ones to boot. got new blood that needs the stink of refueling capability, and enhanced “We are here to help everyone; we’re theater on them, too. It’s not something self-defense systems. The Army’s not just sitting around waiting to go get that has an easy answer.” Apache Longbow attack helicopter weighs in at 16,000 pounds, while a Pave Hawk, with a full kit, will tip a scale at 22,000 pounds. “We’re basically a big flying ambu- lance,” said SSgt. Matt Champagne, a PJ with the 46th ERQS, as he inspected one of the Pave Hawk cabins on the flight

line. “Only, we shoot back.” USAF photo by MSgt. Adrian Cadiz The cabin is a cramped place when fully prepared, filled with medical sup- plies, personnel recovery gear, and special tools for sorties ranging from high-altitude rescue to water recovery. Yes, Champagne noted, even in arid Afghanistan, water recovery will occur, noting that sorties have gone out to recover armored vehicles that have overturned in canals. Rivers in Afghanistan rage in the spring months after snowpack melts, making water missions even more difficult. He in- Supplies float to the ground on parachutes in an airdrop to a remote operating dicated a diamond-tooth saw in the base in Afghanistan. 34 AIR FORCE Magazine / July 2011 On the other side of Kandahar’s run- way was a quartet of Mi-17 helicopters, bearing the roundels of the Afghan Air Force, and several airmen, Lithuanian troops, and Afghans worked on an- other parked in a nearby hangar. Here, USAF air advisors with the 738th Air USAF photo by SrA. Sheila deVera Expeditionary Advisory Group guide AAF counterparts to build skill and proficiency in helicopter operations. It is an often painstaking and halting process, many of them note, and filled with just as much success as frustra- tion. “It’s hard to do this [sort of thing] in a combat zone,” said Lt. Col. Fred Koegler, a veteran of three advisory tours in Southwest Asia. “We’re in a [situation] where I have to balance SrA. Hilarie Maine checks an AIM-120 missile secured to the wing of an F-16 during things. We are trying to enable a ‘train a preflight check at Bagram. Without sharp ground crews, Afghanistan’s challeng- first’ mindset, rather than just [letting ing environment would be virtually impossible to work in. people] fly off into operations.” Even this mission is not without The strain of this war is also visible Today’s flight, a two-ship formation, risks. In April, an Afghan pilot shot on airmen fighting far from the flight would fly up to a drop zone in northwest and killed eight USAF air advisors at line at Kandahar. Afghanistan, stop at Bagram to replen- Kabul Airport. The isolated locations of FOBs and ish pallets in a few hours, then turn and In his first six months with the squad- combat outposts across Afghanistan perform one more drop before landing ron, Koegler said, his airmen had worked are crucial to ferreting out Taliban and back at Kandahar. Each bundle weighed to improve simple tasks such as aviation insurgent support networks and strong- about 1,200 pounds, and there were English competency, improving com- holds, senior officials point out. They strict procedures about how to ingress munication, command and control, and are at the end of a long logistical chain, for a drop, with the aircraft dipping as accountability, from officers to NCOs. more often than not held together by low as 2,000 feet above ground while Many of the pilots and crews are older tactical airlift to keep these locations watching for the purple smoke of the and have experience flying Mi-17 air- supplied. In addition to calling in air JTAC marking the zone. craft, even since the late 1980s, during strikes, JTACs are often tasked to “pop Afghanistan’s communist period, and smoke” and help guide in frequent air- An Unheralded Front even for the Northern Alliance, which drops of supplies from C-130s deliver- At the drop signal, a blade cuts the fought the Taliban for years. ing materiel, ranging from plywood to restraints holding in the pallets, and But building a sustainable program is fuel and food, to locations otherwise nearly a third of the weight of the not easy, as the metrics are often difficult all but inaccessible. aircraft pours out toward the earth in to track—although anecdotes abound. Early on the morning of March 23, a matter of seconds. “As long as those “Trust is a big part of all of this,” the night shift of the 772nd Expedition- coordinates are correct, we’ll get it in Koegler said. “In Afghanistan, trust is ary Airlift Squadron at Kandahar filed the right place,” Williams said. often as big a part of the solution as into its hut to update the mission board. Loads are turned fast during stops, geography.” Mission areas are growing, Squadron Commander Lt. Col. Craig said Capt. William McLeod, the OIC of he said. Now Afghans regularly perform Williams and others went over the the 451st Expeditionary Airlift Mainte- troop movement, flood response, and previous shift’s missions, and prepped nance Squadron. We drop, we gas up, some aeromedical evacuation activity. today’s. One of the previous shift’s and go often in less than two hours, Last December, in north Helmand crews just came off what they dub the he said. province, some elements of the Afghan “pain train”—a long multistop route The tempo runs Hercs through the military brought one of their helicop- up through Afghanistan, stopping in ringer as well, he conceded, noting the ters up for display in a youth shura, or Kyrgyzstan, before coming back down belly of the aircraft and the propeller meeting of young leaders, he noted. to Kandahar Airfield. blades bearing scars of frequent pum- The kids “asked about how they “We’ve got four lined up today,” said meling on nonpaved runways. Fox could fly a helicopter. It was a huge Lt. Col. John Fox, the 772nd’s assistant gave credit to McLeod’s maintainers response,” Koegler said. “This is one of director of operations. The squadron for keeping the aircraft running daily. those things we can do. We can put that was closing in on 50 airdrops for the “Without good maintainers, all you opportunity out there, to show folks ... month already, a new record pace for have is a bunch of static displays,” there are other options to the Taliban.” the year. The squadron had on the ramp Fox quipped. This may be the unheralded front line four C-130J models, which can carry Beyond daily combat operations, of the war in Afghanistan, because a up to 20 bundles for airdrop per flight. many airmen in country are involved successful US drawdown requires local In May, the squadron bumped up to in a mission likely to persist for many forces to effectively take over myriad eight aircraft to handle the expanding years—despite force levels and draw- missions now performed by US and workload. down timelines. NATO forces. n AIR FORCE Magazine / July 2011 35