McCHORD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. — The flight line here sits nearly empty as C-17 crews fly round-the-clock missions transporting military personnel and cargo to support the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
“We have been turning our crews and our planes as fast as we can,” said Lt. Col. Steve Harrison, commander of McChord’s 8th Airlift Squadron.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, McChord’s Boeing-built C-17 Globemaster 3 cargo jets have flown the first captured al-Qaida fighters out of Kandahar, dropped daily food rations over Afghanistan and transported the remains of American soldiers who died in Operation Enduring Freedom.
Now crews are supplying and transporting U.S. forces in the Iraq war.
About 1,100 airmen from McChord’s 62nd Airlift Wing, nearly a third of the group, have been deployed to support U.S. forces in the Middle East. Another 450 airmen from the 446th Airlift Wing, a Tacoma-area Air Force Reserve unit, also have been activated. The 8th Airlift Squadron is part of the 62nd Airlift Wing.
Most of the base’s 39 C-17s are also gone as crews fly hundreds of hours a month, and many of its maintenance and other support personnel have deployed overseas or to other U.S. bases.
Dubbed “the major workhorse” by Air Force Gen. John W. Handy, commander of the military’s U.S. Transportation Command, the C-17 and its crews have been crucial to Air Force missions. Since Sept. 11, nearly 500,000 troops and about 500,000 tons of food and equipment have been delivered to Southwest Asia, an average of more than 300 flights a day.
McChord C-17 crews helped deliver more than 2.4 million daily food rations to Afghanistan. They delivered food and supplies to U.S. troops there, transported the first 20 al-Qaida and Taliban captives, and returned the remains of several U.S. soldiers.
Now airmen are transporting troops and supplies to Kuwait and other undisclosed key locations.
Harrison’s squadron of about 150 pilots and loadmasters have been busy — with some gone more than 270 days a year, he said.
“We could not keep it up indefinitely,” Harrison said of the current operations pace. “But we can keep it up for what we have on our plate.”
Since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the military has become smaller in number, increasing the demand for quick transport of troops and supplies.
“There’s almost an insatiable demand for airlift these days,” said Lt. Col. John Tobin, commander of the 62nd Airlift Maintenance Squadron.
