From: bergman@afpan.pa.af.mil (CMSgt Mike Bergman)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: AF Features - Operation Southern Watch
Date: 4 Nov 92 17:25:22 GMT
Organization: Hq Air Force News Agency/SCC


From CMSgt Mike Bergman <bergman@afpan.pa.af.mil>



SW13.  Pilots no strangers to Gulf
SW14.  Postal people deliver
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SW13.  Pilots no strangers to Gulf
By SSgt. Virginia Cadena
Joint Task Force - Southwest Asia Public Affairs
     ARABIAN GULF REGION -- Pilots that went nose-to-nose exchanging fire in
air-to-air combat during the Gulf War are flying back into the same airspace,
but this time under different conditions.
     "This time we're not being shot at," said Maj. Paul Burns, an F-15E
weapon system officer with the 336th Fighter Squadron from Seymour Johnson
AFB, N.C.
     Flying the newest, most technologically advanced, multi-mission fighter
in the Air Force inventory, the 336th FS is here as part of the coalition
forces supporting Operation Southern Watch enforcing the no-fly zone south of
the 32nd parallel.
     One of three operational F-15E squadrons in the world, the 336th FS is no
stranger to the region.  The three squadrons at Seymour Johnson have rotated
the Gulf tour since August 1989.
     Together with F-15Cs, F-4s, EF-111s, F-16s, British Tornados and French
Mirages, the F-15Es have a unique mission.  The Strike Eagle carries any
missile that can be fired from any airplane and also drops bombs.
     Not thrilled to be back, Burns recalled flights during the war when he
was shot at in the middle of the night.  "Being shot at was scary, but it was
exhilarating," Burns said.
     Although the threat of being fired at is lower than during Desert Storm,
he said the squadron is prepared for the possibility of a trigger-happy Iraqi
firing a missile at them.
     "However, our missions now are quite boring," Burns said.  Their present
battle is combating complacency on the long missions, he said.
     Returning for his second rotation in the Gulf, Burns said he enjoyed
seeing what the terrain looks like in the daytime since his war missions were
flown in the dark.
     Flying over Iraq now, the major sees the war's battle damage, and has
recognized targets -- such as bridges and bunkers -- he bombed.
     Capt. Kent Johnson, also an F-15E pilot, said pilots can't make hitting
targets personal.  "You become detached about it and you don't address that
issue -- you press on," he explained.  "You're a professional.  You have a job
to do and whether you survive or not depends on it."
     Johnson's perspective of Desert Storm is different from other squadron
veterans.  As an air liaison officer with the Army's 101st Airborne during the
war, he has a better appreciation for what happened on the ground.
     "One is that I am damn glad I'm up in an airplane, not living on the
ground," Johnson said.
     After living in the desert with the Army for 230 days, Johnson said he
appreciates his present accommodations at the 4404th Composite Wing
(Provisional) -- especially running water, flushable toilets and air
conditioning.
     Since the war, Johnson has traded in his HUMMWV for an F-15E; a three-man
tent for an air-conditioned, furnished suite; and radios for a highly
technical cockpit.
     And he said he's glad he's flying the most flexible aircraft in the
inventory.
     "It's like magic," Johnson said.
     A multi-role aircraft, the Strike Eagle can go unseen.  "We have the
ability to go very low, but we're just as efficient from medium altitude, and
that's where we accomplished most of our missions during the war," he said.
     One of the most important capabilities is the aircraft's ability to fly
at night.  Equipping the aircraft with the Low Altitude Navigation Targeting
Infrared for Night system, which allows night vision, has made the job of the
F-15E pilot and weapons systems operator easier.
     Gone are the analog dials -- replaced by computer-age digitized screens.
     Like a video game, the fighter is equipped with several screens that give
the pilot and weapons system operator information they may need to make any
operational decision from the air.
     "All the information is presented," Johnson said.  "It's all there.  You
learn to recognize the information you need at any point and disregard the
rest until it's needed.
     "Altogether, the human element, the teamwork aspect, the avionics, the
power plants, the weapons that we carry, makes an extremely capable platform."
     "We can do it all," Burns added.  The F-15E enhances the capability of
the air-to-air F-15, but it also adds the air-to-ground role.  "That's where
our emphasis is placed," he said.  "We also have the ability to carry a very
large load a very long way."
     Because there are two crewmembers on the aircraft, the workload is
divided among them, allowing higher proficiency in weapons delivery, Johnson
said.
     "In this theater, we also have to be proficient in low-altitude (flying),
which takes a lot of training because flying low is dangerous -- and doing it
at night with other airplanes around makes it that much more dangerous," Burns
said.
     And loading the weapons can be just as dangerous, so everyone has a great
respect them, said TSgt. Peter Pretto, a weapons expediter for the squadron.
"We know what we are working with and that we could hurt a lot of people if we
mess up," he said.
     "The aircraft has a fantastic weapons delivery system," said Pretto, who
tracks the weapons loading progress.
     Unlike during Desert Storm, the aircraft return with live ordnance,
making safety a big concern for maintainers.
     "We have a lot safety standards that we are required to maintain,
especially when we are working with live ordnance," said CMSgt. Ed Farris,
superintendent for the 336th FS.
     Safety being their No. 1 concern, the chief said it's extremely important
to send pilots up in a reliable plane.
     "If we don't do our job right, we risk losing a $60 million airplane as
well as two lives," he said.
     "There's a lot of trust," Farris added.  "We (pilots and maintainers)
have a great relationship.  We are a tight-knit group -- the best I've seen in
19 years in the Air Force.
     "The pilots trust our expertise.  Their lives depend on it."
     So far, they haven't had any major maintenance problems with the F-15E.
Although the chief said pilots fly the aircraft hard, there are no major
problems because of the quality of the maintenance.  "We never quick-fix
anything -- we do the job right," he said.
     When it comes to quality maintenance, the chief said the 336th FS
maintainers are the best in Air Combat Command.  "We have very few repeat
occurrences, because we always do the job right the first time," he said.
     Working around the clock in 12-hours shifts, seven-days a week, the
maintainers keep the Strike Eagle capable of its role in enforcing the no-fly
zone.


SW14.  Postal people deliver
By SSgt. Buzz Ritchie
4404th CW (P) Public Affairs
     ARABIAN GULF REGION -- Thirty thousand pounds of mail in one week -- and
that's a slow week for the postal people working at one of the aerial mail
terminals in the region.
     It's not even close to the record the best Air Force AMT in 1991 set
during Desert Storm -- 1 million pounds of mail every week of the war.
     "During Desert Storm, we were the largest aerial mail terminal in the
world," said MSgt. Michael L. Watkins, the operations location chief for OL-AD
Det. 1, 9th Air Postal Squadron.
     Then, the terminal had more than 100 people handling hundreds of pallets
of mail every day.  Now, there are just four deployed postal clerks working
with two permanent party military members and two civilians.
     Although the volume of mail is much less than the sea of packages, post
cards and letters pouring in during Desert Storm, the APO for the 4404th
Composite Wing (Provisional) also puts up some impressive numbers:  In one
month, the wing sent more than 40,000 pounds of mail back to the United
States.  An average week sees more than 8,000 pounds of mail leave here for
addresses in the United States.
     It keeps the people running the post office very busy.
     "Thursday and Saturday are the heavy mail days here," said TSgt. Darryl
T. Richardson, APO chief.  No flights from London on Tuesday mean two days of
mail catch up with the APO on Thursday.  And because the post office is closed
Friday, two days of mail also greet postal clerks who arrive for work Saturday
morning.
     But APO 09894, the ZIP code for the wing's post office, is just one of 24
APOs in Southwest Asia that gets mail channeled through the aerial mail
terminal owned by the detachment.
     Mail from home that means so much to the people here travels a path that
starts at mail boxes across the United States. Letters are routed through the
post offices serving the sender's ZIP code, on to Kennedy International
Airport in New York, through London, then into the region on international
flights with British Airways.  Some mail is sent directly from Kennedy
International Airport to here.
     All registered mail is handled by Air Mobility Command and flown into the
region on C-130s and C-141s, according to SSgt. Mike W. Crosgrove, a postal
clerk at the AMT.
     "My day starts at 6 a.m. when I drive to the airport with another person
from the AMT," Crosgrove said.  There, incoming mail is picked up at the
international and domestic terminals.
     The mail is weighed, sent through customs for random inspections, loaded
into a truck, and brought back to the AMT.  There, it's unloaded again,
separated according to destination, bagged, sealed and loaded back on the
truck for its return trip to the airport. Once again it's separated and loaded
on flights bound for destinations in the region.
     Crosgrove said there's no time to stand around at the air mail terminal.
"Everyone here is doing something all the time," he explained.  "You load the
same bag of mail three to five times a day just moving it from truck to truck.
 There's a lot of lifting in this job."
     When Crosgrove arrived in July, the heat took a heavy toll on the people
picking up mail at the airport.
     "Customs inspections are done outside the airport on a ramp," Watkins
explained.  "If you've got 150 bags of mail with 10 packages in each bag, and
the customs agents want to inspect 80 percent of all the packages, that's a
grueling day in the hot sun."
     Crosgrove agrees.  "The heat was the hardest thing to get used to," he
said.  "Sometimes we're on the ramp for two hours while customs inspects the
mail.  I didn't realize it was going to be so hot."
     Postal clerks on the main side of the base make one mail run a day,
dropping off mail leaving the region at 10 a.m. and picking up mail addressed
to members stationed here.
     "The volume of mail we receive will increase in November," Richardson
said.  The operations location chief on the other side of the base, Watkins,
added that new TDY rotations and holidays increase the amount of mail coming
and going in the region.
     As the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season approaches, postal
people here are looking forward to the arrival of a postal rotation group that
will nearly double their numbers.
     Like all postal rotations, the November group will be consist of several
different primary Air Force Specialty Codes -- maintenance, supply, legal,
intelligence and information management to name a few.  Postal is a secondary
AFSC for all of them, but every one of the postal clerks arriving in November
has served an assignment in a postal unit somewhere in the world.
     Richardson, an information management specialist from Davis-Monthan AFB,
Ariz., worked at APOs in Korea and Germany.  Crosgrove, an information manager
from Offutt AFB, Neb., was a postal clerk at Soesterberg AB, the Netherlands.
All postal clerks follow the credo spelled out by the Persian King Darius I
nearly 2,500 years ago:  "Neither rain, nor snow, nor gloom of night will stay
these faithful couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."
     The motto adopted by the AMT here, shorter but still true to the spirit
of Darius I, is simply:  "We deliver."


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