Airmen from the Virginia Air National Guard's Virginia Beach-based 203rd RED HORSE Squadron erect a K-Span building at Manas Transit Center in Kyrgyzstan May 21, 2011. Approximately 120 airmen from the 203rd RED HORSE Squadron are scheduled to return to the United States, Oct. 8, after serving in Afghanistan and other areas in the Central Command area of operations. The unit began federal active duty Feb. 17, 2011, spent several weeks conducting final preparations in Virginia, then spent three weeks in early March at Fort McCoy, Wisc., for Combat Skills Training before heading overseas. While overseas, the Airmen of the 203rd RED HORSE served as part of the 1st Expeditionary RED HORSE Group, an organization made of up more than 400 personnel from the 203rd and other RED HORSE units that was a mix active duty and Air National Guard. The 1st ERHG was headquartered in Al Udeid AB, Qatar and was responsible for providing theater engineer support for vertical and horizontal construction missions and projects that enhanced operations, safety and quality of life for soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines in the Central Command Area of Operations. RED HORSE stands for Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineers, and the unit provides a highly mobile civil engineering response force to support contingency operations worldwide.