Hoooah! Army life for airmen

Combat Edge, Oct, 2004 by Justin Wieland

Although not technically classified as such, there is perhaps no Air Force career field more "joint" than those assigned as Tactical Air Control Parties, or TACPs. Their mission is to provide terminal control of Close Air Support (CAS) platforms for the Army units they support. Although they work for Air Liaison Officers (ALOs) in an Air Support Operations Squadron (ASOS), their daily lives in a deployed environment revolve around the Army Brigade or Battalion that they support. In fact, TACPs train, work, live, and deploy with the Army.

Throughout a 4-month deployment to Iraq as an ALO with the 1st Infantry Division (1ID), I witnessed firsthand the dramatic differences between Army and Air Force operations. My experience, which at times was nothing less than comical, provides insight into the TACP world and food for thought with respect to maximizing safety in such a dangerous environment.

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The deployment began with a C-17 flight from Ramstein AB to Iraq on February 9, 2004. Along with 32 soldiers and my single Air Force companion, we packed the aircraft to capacity with equipment required to establish the Division Tactical Command Center (DTAC). While the flight went off without a hitch, our first 24 hours in Iraq was a rude introduction to Army life. After 2 hours of waiting on the tarmac, we were escorted to tent city where we spent the coldest night I've experienced since survival training--sleeping on cots in a tent, without access to our sleeping bags, which were piled neatly on a pallet in front of the tent. Oblivious to the irony of his command, the DTAC commander directed us to break down that pallet the following morning and load the bags onto a flatbed truck in preparation for our convoy to "Forward Operating Base (FOB) Danger." Following a convoy brief from the Sergeant Major in charge of our MP escort, I took my place in the back of a 5-ton open-air truck. Wood benches lined the side of the truck bed, so we sat on our bags in order to face out and present an offensive posture to anyone who might engage the convoy. I loaded my M-4 in accordance with Army policy--round chambered, weapon on safe--and spent the next 3 hours on the road to "Danger," eyeing every Iraqi pedestrian as a potential enemy whom I might have to kill and every piece of trash on the road as a potential Improvised Explosive Device (IED). The convoy traveled at an average speed of 60 mph, and I was entertained by the thought of a safety officer preparing the ORM matrix for this journey: ride in the back of a truck, no seat belts, 60 mph, along a stretch of road affectionately known as Purple Heart Highway for the many American lives lost there to IEDs.

Luckily, we were not engaged in this convoy or killed by a traffic accident, despite the concerted efforts of our driver. I was happy to arrive at FOB Danger, an Army post, and take possession of our squadron's armored HUMVEE, a somewhat safer mode of transportation than the back of an open-air truck. The base was well fortified, and we slept soundly in one of the dozens of palaces that house US soldiers on the base. A general sense of security and safety seemed to prevail among soldiers on the FOB, though random attacks by insurgent enemy forces kept everyone on their toes. We received our first does of these attacks just a few days later when two friends of mine were driving their HUMVEE to work. While still on the base, they were attacked by what was thought to be a rocket-propelled grenade. Two Iraqi civilians had fired the weapon from a civilian overpass that crosses the base (why that crossing was not closed altogether is beyond me), but the weapon impacted the ground and succeeded only in throwing mud on their vehicle. Intel later assessed the weapon not to be an RPG, but an SA-7! I really had not expected to face a surface-to-air missile threat until returning to the cockpit.

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The events of that first week were followed by countless wartime experiences for the airmen in my squadron. In the 4 months we were deployed, our TACPs controlled hundreds of CAS sorties for troops in contact situations, counter-mortar missions, convoy support missions, and route security. They went out on patrols, participated in raids on enemy safe houses, controlled dozens of missions dropping live ordnance, and were involved in a few firefights. The bases we were stationed at received multiple mortar and rocket attacks, along with the occasional SA-7, as noted earlier. The 1ID DTAC, where I worked along with 3 TACPs, relocated four times in 16 weeks. Every move involved a large convoy (or two) of up to 35 vehicles, traveling hundreds of miles through hostile territory. Not unexpectedly, we experienced every possible problem on these movements: vehicle breakdowns, enemy contact, RPGs, IEDs, and an occasional wrong turn. On one particularly entertaining afternoon, an Army vehicle in our convoy ran out of gas in the middle of "RPG Alley," a short stretch of road so named for its high concentration of enemy attacks. Though we were fortunate to escape the typical RPG attack normally associated with a stop in RPG alley, that incident highlighted a persistent challenge for ASOS commanders: their airmen are at risk not only from enemy activity, but also from miscalculations, over which they have no control and little influence.