The Afghan Express: airmen work to keep Operation Enduring Freedom on track

Airman, June, 2003 by Louis A. Arana-Barradas

Prying the helmet with the night vision goggles off his head, Staff Sgt. Michael slumped into his seat. He'd had a long day and was tired to the bone. But the day was only half over.

He wiped the sweat that ran over his brow with a gloved hand. Sweat drenched his flight suit. Then he took a deep, sucking swig from a bottle of water and looked over his domain -- the cargo deck of his C-17 Globemaster III airlifter.

Seeing it empty, the loadmaster let out an audible sigh.

"No passengers this time," he said as the jet reached cruising altitude. "Maybe next time."

The huge cargo plane had flown nine hours from Rhein-Main Air Base, Germany, to reach Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan. It landed at 4 a.m. and deposited a dozen soldiers, pallets of supplies and several vehicles. As it sat on the pitch-black taxiway -- with engines running -- a ground crew drained 50,000 pounds of fuel from an extra fuel tank on this version of the plane.

"The C-17 is the backbone of the 'Afghan Express,'" he said. "We can handle the work."

About an hour after landing, the jet took off. It gained altitude quickly to avoid potential small arms ground fire and scale over the snow-covered peaks of the Hindu Kush. It would be a long and lonely flight back to Rhein-Main.

Michael - a reservist with the 70 1st Airlift Squadron, Charleston Air Force Base, S.C., who asked that his surname not be used - settled back into his seat. But he doesn't like going home empty.

"I like it when we fly back with a plane full of troops - taking them home to their families," Michael said. "That's what really makes me happy."

But he knows the prospects are slim that he'll be flying troops out of Afghanistan any time soon. The war on terrorism is a long way from being over, and he knows he'll make more trips into Bagram and other Afghan bases. The troops and their mission depend on the airlift.

Michael said he knows he'll make many more trips into the Middle East, too. That's something he did throughout February and March as the U.S.-Iraq showdown reached the boiling point. The airman flew to a lot of places in the Middle East.

"But we still have a lot of work to do [in Afghanistan] before we win this war," he said.

Winning the war on terrorism in Afghanistan - dubbed Operation Enduring Freedom - is the tough task given Combined Joint Task Force-180 at Bagram. Led by Army Lt. Gen. Dan McNeill, it directs the war on terrorism. The job takes thousands of troops and tons of war materiel.

So airlift is the key to keeping the task force on track, said Brig. Gen. Greg Ihde, the top airman in Afghanistan. Everything - almost exclusively - comes in by air, he said.

Getting the tools of war into mountainous, landlocked Afghanistan is tough. After years of war and Taliban rule, the country has fewer than 20 miles of usable railroads and few good roads.

There's some overland resupply. Some bases get part of their fuel by truck. The Army and Air Force Exchange Service also trucks supplies from the north. But overland resupply barely puts a dent in the demand. Airlift is the only way to go.

"And this is a huge airlift effort," Ihde said.

The only airman given permanent move orders to Afghanistan, thde's job is to provide the task force "air" advice. The outfit he heads is the four-member air component coordination element, or ACCE, which coordinates all task force aircraft operations. It's a U.S. Central Command knockoff, and has a similar role as its multinational combined air operations center in Qatar that directs coalition air operations in the Middle East.

Afghanistan is the element's proving ground. Top soldier McNeill said the airmen have made the concept work. They've become his ACCE in the hole.

"The world has changed. The enemy has changed. And we should change," McNeill said. He said the air component coordination element has proven its worth and made operations easier. Plus, he said, it has integrated with and worked well as part of the combined joint task force.

Airlift is the most noticeable support for the task force. But, the Air Force provides other help from the air through the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing, which Ihde commands. With about 1,700 airmen at seven bases in five countries, the wing takes part in every aspect of the war. But its main job in Afghanistan is providing close air support to ground troops.

It does that with A-to Thunderbolt IIs based in Bagram [See "Bringing the Iron Rain," April 20031 and attack aircraft at other bases. Each of the wing's groups adds to the task force's air power. They provide reconnaissance, surveillance, combat search and rescue, special operations, medevac, refueling and other support.

"We provide a lot of tooth, instead of tail," Ihde said.

The Army runs the show. But McNeill doesn't tell bluesuiters how to do their job, Ihde said.

"General McNeill tells us what he needs, and we give him a proposal on how we'll do it," Ihde said. "He'll invariably say, 'You bet, whatever you guys think is best.'"

Ihde said that's just one example of how well all the services interact in Afghanistan. But airlift and air power aren't all the Air Force offers. Airmen also help with base defense and forward air control, plus provide space-based systems information and weather updates.