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Patriot Evergreen prepares A-10s for combat operations

  • Published
  • By Maj. David Kurle
  • 442nd Fighter Wing Public Affairs
MCCHORD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. --  Reservists from the 442nd Fighter Wing got a chance to practice what they preach early May 16 as the first A-10 of the day lifted off the runway here into a deck of broken clouds.

A second aircraft hurtled down the concrete strip shortly after, loaded like the first with six MK-82 500-pound bombs, on its way to the Yakima firing range, just a short flight over the Cascade Mountains.

Dubbed Patriot Evergreen, the 442nd FW’s annual deployment from Whiteman AFB, Mo., to this base just south of Tacoma, May 14-20, was a chance for the wing to practice the skills it will need in future combat operations.

“We experience a higher pace of operations when we deploy here,” said Tech. Sgt. Tami Goodhart, the lead aircraft maintenance scheduler in the 442nd Maintenance Operations Flight. “We don’t have as many people as we do at Whiteman (AFB) and the aircraft have to turn faster.”

The 442nd FW made the trip here May 14-15, not counting the advance team, flying in six of the Air Force’s premier ground-attack aircraft. A C-5 Galaxy transport aircraft carried the maintenance and support people and equipment.

“We set up everything so that when it was time to do business we had everything we needed,” said Tech. Sgt. Jose Torres, a material expeditor from the 442nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron.

Sergeant Torres’ job was to provide the tools and equipment needed to keep the A-10s flying throughout the exercise. He stressed that deployments like Patriot Evergreen are necessary to keep the fighter wing ready for any contingency. Sergeant Torres should know since he deployed with the wing to both Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Exercises like this helped us before we went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said. “These little deployments help us learn to work as a team.”

To help ensure the training is as realistic as possible, the wing’s 303rd Fighter Squadron intelligence section prepares a scenario to keep the focus on the mission of putting bombs on target.

In Patriot Evergreen the scenario was one that the wing’s people could face in a deployment to Iraq, supporting U.S. Army units in a ground offensive, according to Capt. David Casler, an intelligence officer in the 303rd FS.

“This exercise gives us face time with the pilots, so they can get to know the intel folks,” he said. “We’re practicing our deployed job of giving step briefs to the pilots before their sorties and debriefs to the pilots after their sorties. This gives them more confidence in our abilities during the real thing.”

Another benefit to the exercise was teaching younger Airmen what it’s like to operate in a combat environment.

“This exercise gives us an opportunity to teach the younger troops how to work in a deployed environment and focus on the mission of maintenance,” said Master Sgt. Steve Hult, an expeditor in the 442nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron. “It gives us more training than on the weekends. We’re working with live bombs and live bullets. It’s as realistic as we can get without someone actually shooting at us.”

For some of the 442nd FW’s Airmen, this was their first mission away from Whiteman AFB.

“I’m getting the gist of how things would work in a war-time environment,” said Senior Airman Tim Murphy from the 303rd Fighter Squadron’s intelligence section.

“It’s good to watch the jets take off after all the work we’ve done to them because we can get a lot closer to them than we can at Whiteman,” said Senior Airman Andrew Heck from the egress section of the 442nd Maintenance Squadron.

“It feels good to see the fruits of your labor and learning a little bit of what it’s like to go to war,” said the Airman whose job is to maintain the A-10s’ ejection systems.

For the pilots, the training was valuable because it was simply a different place than the range the 303rd FS usually flies to in its home state of Missouri, according to an A-10 pilot, Lt. Col. Ronald Hankes.

“Anytime we have to deploy someplace different is good training for us,” he said. “Looking for targets in an unfamiliar environment lets us practice our target identification skills.”

Using live bombs and bullets also enhances the training, according to Colonel Hankes.

“There’s nothing like the real thing, we have 3,000 pounds of ordnance and that affects how the aircraft performs,” he said. “It’s important for fighter pilots to drop live ordnance once in a while.”

Since preparing for combat is the primary job of an Air Force unit, deployments like Patriot Evergreen are a valuable tool for highlighting strengths and weaknesses, Colonel Hankes said.

“Anything that gets you used to combat deployments is good training,” he said. “You don’t want the first time you experience this to be in combat.”