These USAF engineers are at the leading edge of one of the largest military construction efforts since Vietnam. The RED HORSE Way By Peter Grier HE Air Force’s elite corps of programs since Vietnam. “These At right, members from the 819th/ rapid deployment civil engi- are awesome accomplishments,” 219th Expeditionary RED HORSE fit neers is working miracles in said Col. Fred Wieners, director of together building arches at al Udeid Afghanistan, Qatar, Kyrgyz- Task Force Enduring Look, an Air AB, Qatar, on New Year’s Eve 2002. stan, and other austere loca- Force effort to document lessons Ttions that are the scenes of Opera- learned in the war against terror- tion Enduring Freedom and other ism. “What other country could go US actions in the region. halfway around the world and do They are the Rapid Engineer De- that?” ployable Heavy Operational Repair Consider the scale of the ramp Squadron Engineer, better known as project—the biggest single job a RED HORSE, units. RED HORSE unit has ever under- These outfits have undertaken huge taken. tasks ranging from the largest air- In this venture, Air Force engi- craft parking ramp project in history neers from the 820th and 823rd RED to renovation of living quarters at HORSE units spent five months former Taliban bases in Afghani- transforming a scrub-and-sand Gulf stan. They’ve repaired runways in desert site into a paved airfield the blackout conditions and, at one for- size of about 20 combined football ward base, laid enough gravel to build fields. a road that would stretch from the Members of the 820th, who de- Pentagon to Langley Air Force Base ployed from Nellis AFB, Nev., and in the Tidewater area of southeast- 823rd, from Hurlburt Field, Fla., and ern Virginia. an assortment of other Air Force en- With an estimated $100 million gineering personnel worked around worth of projects under way at the the clock to finish the project early. end of 2002, RED HORSE squad- The ramp—at al Udeid in Qatar—is rons are the leading edge of one of some 44,000 square feet larger than the largest military construction the previous record holder’s ramp, 70 AIR FORCE Magazine / February 2003 USAF photo by SSgt. Matthew Hannen which was built by the 554th RED fire-fighting and personnel consump- operations. In Fiscal 2003, plans even HORSE in 1967 at Phan Rang Air tion. call for the addition of airdrop capa- Base in what was then South Viet- RED HORSE units are the civil bility to some squadrons, allowing nam. engineering SWAT teams of the them to deliver light equipment and Air Force. They are 404-person personnel by airdrop or other air Record Time units whose mission is to move transport means. “They built this thing [at al Udeid] quickly to support special opera- Current doctrine organizes the in record time,” noted Maj. Gen. tions or contingency deployments squadrons into four deployment ech- Earnest O. Robbins II, the Air Force worldwide. elons. The first has 16 persons who civil engineer, at the Pentagon. “Out- They are trained to operate in high- are capable of assessment and site side contractors estimated it would threat environments with little or no preparation and ready to move within take months.” contractor support, and they are so 16 hours of notification. The sec- The project called for pouring more self-contained that they can deploy ond—with 148 people—can be ready than 1,000 cubic yards of concrete with their own weapons, equipment, to deploy within 96 hours and adds every 24 hours. A typical work day and even food service and medical heavy bomb damage repair and light saw movement of up to 350 trucks support if need be. base development to the capabilities on and off the site. Their specialty is what Air Force mix. The third element—with 120 “They actually had to build up this officials have called “horizontal ca- personnel—moves six days after entire area by about three and a half pability”—runway and ramp con- notification, and the fourth—with feet,” said Robbins. “It was a rather struction, maintenance, and repair. another 120 personnel—moves two incredible construction project.” However, they are meant to be ex- days later and brings a RED HORSE Besides the ramp, RED HORSE traordinarily flexible, and they can unit to full strength. members built at the same base some do virtually all civil engineering Four of the Air Force’s seven RED 124,000 square feet of covered main- tasks, from damage assessment to HORSE squadrons are active duty. tenance space and a new fire station, the erection of buildings on previ- The remainder are provided by the warehouse, four hangars, and a ously bare bases. Air National Guard and Air Force squadron operations facility. They Some units possess special capa- Reserve Command. The latter are laid 10,000 feet of conduit and built bilities. These range from well-drill- split units, with the two halves be- water-handling facilities for both ing to explosive demolition and quarry ing located at different bases and AIR FORCE Magazine / February 2003 71 serving under different command- runways and blowing up hardened base in months—one that is the equal ers. For example, the 200th RED aircraft shelters. of facilities in Saudi Arabia. HORSE, Port Clinton, Ohio, com- In the war on terrorism, the RED bines with the 201st RED HORSE, HORSE units have had a chance to Bomb and Build Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa., to form a really stretch their legs. The work The second is repair work on ex- full unit. the units have undertaken for Endur- isting but decrepit facilities. A per- ing Freedom has been perhaps their fect example of this is Bagram, the Vietnam Roots biggest challenge ever. main air base in Afghanistan. Built The roots of RED HORSE are in “Certainly in terms of magnitude, by the Soviets during their ill-fated the Vietnam era, when then–Secre- the size of the projects, their dura- Afghan occupation of the 1980s, tary of Defense Robert S. McNamara tion, these are the most sustained Bagram suffered considerable dam- asked the Air Force to develop an in- RED HORSE operations” since the age during the brief allied campaign house combat construction capabil- 1960s, said Robbins. against the Taliban. RED HORSE ity similar to that of the Navy’s Since the United States on Oct. 7, was then charged with going in and Seabees. RED HORSE was the re- 2001, launched its attack on Taliban rebuilding what 500-pound Air Force sult, with the first units deployed to forces in Afghanistan, RED HORSE bombs had torn asunder. Phan Rang in 1966. units have gone to a total of 26 sites US runways typically feature smooth Since that time, the squadrons— in the region. At 12 of these bases, and continuous concrete surfaces. The whose emblem is a snorting, armed the units did actual construction. At Soviet style, however, was to build in red horse driving a bulldozer—have 14 they did site surveys or other concrete slabs. In theory, this makes played a key role in Air Force con- assessment work. construction easier. In practice, up- tingency operations. In the 1991 Some 1,400 RED HORSE person- keep becomes a nightmare. Gulf War, for instance, a composite nel, from five different squadrons, “You have all these joints running RED HORSE force drawn from a have cycled through the Enduring laterally and horizontally,” said number of squadrons completed Freedom theater of operations. Spe- Robbins. “It is a constant mainte- more than 25 construction projects cialties most in demand have been nance problem to try to keep the at 12 different sites in the Gulf re- those associated with runway work, airfield smooth.” gion. which includes everything from con- Each 11-by-13-foot concrete slab Much of the work was in Saudi crete mixing to airfield lighting in- takes an hour or more to repair. RED Arabia. At al Kharj, just south of stallers. HORSE teams—in conjunction with Riyadh, RED HORSE personnel su- RED HORSE work for Operation other USAF civil engineering units— pervised the construction in a matter Enduring Freedom can be essentially repaired or replaced more than 2,500 of weeks of an air base capable of divided into two main categories, of them. handling five fighter squadrons. They according to Air Force officials. “Allied forces had done a really built berms to protect Patriot missile The first is the construction of new good job of destroying that airfield,” sites for the Army. At the end of the air capacity in expectation of future said the top Air Force civil engineer. war, per order of the Gulf War air requirements. The construction at al At one point during this process, boss, then–Lt. Gen. Charles A. Horner, Udeid is a good example of this. Air US commanders at Bagram decided they essentially destroyed two air Force personnel have essentially cre- the security situation was such that bases in southern Iraq by cutting ated a giant new forward operating some of the repairs should take place at night, with the RED HORSE mem- bers using night vision equipment. Partly for this reason—and partly because it was a good training oppor- tunity—the 200th/201st RED HORSE went out and successfully poured concrete in complete darkness, using only night vision equipment. “That’s the first time we’ve ever USAF photo by SSgt. Michael Gaddis done that, to my knowledge,” said Robbins. The difficulty of this operation was compounded by the fact that the crew was using a deployable pavement repair system.