A Sweet Homecoming

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Shawn Rhodes
  • 927th Air Refueling Wing
MacDill Air Force Base, Fla. --  Running a gas station thousands of feet above the ground is harder than it looks. Just ask the nearly 90 local reservists who recently returned home from war.

The 927th Air Refueling Wing, a reserve unit based at MacDill AFB, recently welcomed home Airmen who are not active-duty servicemembers hardened by ten years of deployments, but are proven warriors just the same. They are business owners, employees, and long-term members of the local community. Like many reservists, these Airmen are being called upon to serve their nation overseas in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), Operation Northern Defense and other contingency operations, often for months at a time.

While the day-to-day routine of a deployment can often seem monotonous, when the 927th's members returned, they had a chance to take stock of all they had accomplished.

"We completed 99 percent of our mission taskings, flew 66 refueling missions using four different kinds of aircraft in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation New Dawn," said Lt. Col. Andrew Stephan, the deployed commander of the 90th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron, the unit the 927 ARW personnel were assigned to.

Not only did this deployment keep the Airmen busy, it also gave them the opportunity to travel.

"These Airmen conducted operations out of Incirlik Air Base, Turkey; Bourgas Bulgaria; Mihail Kogălniceanu; Romania, Baku; Azerbaijan and Al Udeid; Kuwait," Stephan said. He added that over the deployment, 4.5 million pounds of fuel were offloaded and the pilots logged 180 flight hours.

Aerial refueling doesn't capture the public's attention like a fighter-jet, but is an irreplaceable part of winning the nation's battles.

The refueling operations conducted by the 927th provide the OEF/International Security Assistance Force a critical capability; it means planes can fly farther to move urgently needed supplies and personnel into places quickly, Stephan said.

"Being able to provide aerial refueling ensures that the U.S. military and coalition partners have the ability to conduct and sustain operations from anywhere, at any time."

Those operations would not be completed without help from the folks on the ground. Even gas stations need logistics and maintenance professionals to keep things running. These support service personnel often go unnoticed but are just as important as the pilots flying the planes.

"The support personnel we sent brought everything from vehicle operations to deployment capability to the fight," said Capt. Bret Wedding, commander of the 927th Logistics Readiness Squadron. Wedding had members of his unit deployed with the 90th EARS, and he understands the value of what happens behind-the-scenes on a mission. "The warriors in support roles are essential to the refueling mission success, because without them they would not be able to deploy, sustain, and redeploy."

The most surprising part of a deployment is rarely what someone expects it to be. For members of the 927th, it was the opportunity to work with foreign nationals to accomplish mutual goals.

"We were all surprised by the incredible support provided by the Bulgarians. Operating out of four countries in the European Command Area of Responsibility was a great experience for all of the deployed personnel," Stephan said.