Posted on 05/03/2003 2:08:24 PM PDT by Paul Ross
5/2/2003 - OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM (AFPN) -- After more than 220 sorties, almost 2,000 combat flying hours and more than 6,000 jammed enemy signals in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the airmen of the 41st Expeditionary Electronic Combat Squadron can call it a day.
As part of the 64th Air Expeditionary Wing deployed to Southwest Asia, the 41st EECS played a key role during the war by disrupting Iraqi military communications to support many operations, including the rescue of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch.
The 41st flies the EC-130H Compass Call aircraft, and its mission is to jam unfriendly communications, making it difficult for an enemy to command and control its forces, said Lt. Col. Don Bacon, the 41st EECS commander.
"We were involved with almost every major operation that went on in Iraq," the commander said. "It was very demanding."
Flying over Iraq took the squadron's maintenance crews to new levels.
"I think the guys found new limits in themselves because they got pushed beyond the exhaustion point," said Master Sgt. Daniel Johnson, the night-shift production supervisor. "We worked 45 or 50 12-hour shifts in a row with no days off, and everybody held up really well."
The airmen held up, but maintaining some of the equipment was a challenge.
"It just seemed odd that we were changing so many parts," said Senior Airman David Pazak, an aircraft propulsion craftsman. "We started thinking about it and looking at the hours we were generating. We did six months of maintenance in a four-week period."
During the war, the unit worked 24-hour operations launching an aircraft approximately every eight hours, said Maj. Steven Weld, the maintenance flight commander.
"It just didn't seem to end," he said. "Constantly, maintenance had to be done."
"We always had a plane to give them," said Senior Master Sgt. Duncan Tanaka, the maintenance superintendent.
Maintainers turned the planes over to the aircrews who then ventured into the not so friendly skies.
"We typically fly (on) the friendly side, jamming deep into the enemy side," Bacon said. "Here we flew way forward, and that was a little bit stressful.
"We were seeing unguided missiles flying by ... and that's not something we're used to."
"It keeps you on the edge of your seat knowing that there were people down there who would love to shoot you down," said Lt. Col. Brad Byrd, the squadron operations officer who flew during the conflict in what were typically 13-hour missions.
To add to the challenges, the unit also dealt with last-minute mission changes, such as one received April 1 diverting them to the Nasiriya area of Iraq from their original mission.
"We weren't told what the mission was," Bacon said. "Just jam any Iraqi stuff in that region.
"The next day we heard that Private Lynch was rescued in Nasiriya."
A senior official at the combined air operations center later contacted 41st EECS officials and told them 'you guys did a great job, you had a direct impact on the mission,' Bacon said.
After a nearly six-month deployment that started in November, airmen from the 41st EECS are proud of their accomplishments and are happy to be returning home to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz. (Courtesy of Air Combat Command News Service)
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