Airmen in the Fight: C-17 Crew Delivers Supplies and Troops to and from Iraq

  • Published
  • By Sgt Catherine Talento
  • Air Force Print News
AL TAQADDUM-Iraq --  It's late in the afternoon on Spangdahlem Air Base Germany and the crew of Reach 5152 are preparing for the evening's mission. 

Up in the flight deck pilots First Lieutenant Mike Boyer and Captain John Ramsey are running pre-flight checklists, while down below Staff Sergeant Ryan Page and Master Sergeant Mike Cumberland are checking the cargo and giving pre-flight instructions to the Soldiers the crew are helping to transport.

 As the plane lifts off and heads out over the French Alps the crew begins additional preparations for the mission, removing the weapons and flax vests stored up in the crew deck. Tonight, the crew will need this equipment as they fly the first of two missions into Iraq. 

"We have the equipment and training to get the mission done," asserts Master Sergeant Cumberland, a loadmaster with the 535th Airlift Wing, "Basically, when you put on this stuff, it hits home what you are about to do." 

The stuff Sergeant Cumberland is referring to are the flak and survival vests the crew will don over their flight suits. The vests are lightweight tan vests that go over the Airmen's head and shoulders. Over that is placed a survival vest filled with items the crew would use should the need arise. 

About an hour before reaching the Iraqi border, the call comes for the crew to don their gear. Over the plane's crew headsets,  Major Landon Henderson, aircraft commander,  briefs the team on the sequence of events. The first stop for Reach 5152 will be Mosul in Northern Iraq. While attacks on helicopters are on the rise in Iraq, attacks on planes are rarer and Mosul is a relatively quiet area. The crew will take advantage of the darkness, flying into Mosul Air Base in blackout conditions using Night Vision Goggles.

 "You want to remain as elusive as possible so if someone on the ground has ordinance or RPGs or small arms they can't see you and if they can see you they don't have time to take a shot," explains Lieutenant Boyer, "We have a lot of people on the plane and we want to keep them safe. That's the best way possible." 

Steadily, the plane descends. The landing is incident free but as an added measure of safety the pilots leave the engines running as loadmasters work with ground crews to quickly offload the pallets of cargo. This process of leaving the engine running is called an ERO or engine running on or off load and it's one more way aircrews stay safe in the combat zone.

"It's basically to minimize ground time," said Sergeant Page.  "We don't have to start engines and preflight again. We just offload and take right off." 

From Mosul, Reach 5152 flew to Al Udied Air Base, Qatar. The crew rests here before turning around and returning to Iraq. 

The next night Reach 5152 lifts off from Qatar and once again heads towards Iraq, this time to Al Taqaddum Air Base, outside Baghdad. Using the same techniques as the previous night, the C-17 lands at the base and opens its cargo area while waiting to receive the waiting fleet of loaders bearing the equipment 5152 will bring back to the States. 

Fully loaded, the plane takes off into the Iraqi night, heading first to Souda Bay, Greece, then Germany, before resting and beginning the long journey home. For Reach 5152, the total time in Iraq was a little less than an hour, but it is the troops and thousands of pounds of supplies delivered that prove these Airmen, like thousands of others in the Air Force, are in fight.