389th hits Taliban, Al-Queda

Wednesday, March 6, 2002

Getting there was the hard part. But once they arrived, the 389th Fighter Squadron let the Taliban and Al-Queda fighters in Afghanistan know they were there.

Normally configured for the "wild weasel" electronic warfare role, the 389th's F-16CJ Falcon aircraft reverted to the plane's more traditional role of dropping bombs on people -- which they did with great skill, Lt. Col. Lawhead, commander of the squadron told the Chamber's Military Affairs Committee last week.

Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States the 389th was ordered to prepare for deployment several times, only to have the orders canceled. Not until early November did 115 members of the Thunderbolt squadron and 6 jets head out to the war.

They actually beat some of the support equipment to their still-classified deployment location in a nation adjoining the Persian Gulf, but Lawhead said the Gunfighter teams "did a magnificent job," getting the unit set up and ready to fly combat operations.

Their base, he said, "has significantly less trees than even Mountain Home," and originally had nothing more than a runway, a few hardened shelters and only a couple of buildings. Gunfighter support teams literally built a new airbase and surrounding tent city for 3,000 people in a matter of days to support the Falcons and ten KC-135 and KC-10 tankers that were deployed to the base.

In fact, throughout the deployment, "in true Gunfighter style, the support group is always looking for way to do something for the troops," and today the base features a small BX, a theater and a sand volleyball/beach playground area. "There's lots of sand there. Sand was not an issue," Lawhead noted.

In a matter of days the Thunderbolt pilots were flying sorties that could take up to ten hours to reach Afghanistan and then loiter over the battlefield waiting for targets. "It didn't take too long to develop the proper calluses in the proper places," Lawhead told the packed crowd at the MAC meeting.

"The perfect mission would be to get in country, contact the FAC (forward air controller on the ground designating targets), who would then have a target ready for us, we'd drop our bombs and fly home."

Of course, he said, "toward the end, the FACs were getting a little apologetic that they didn't have any targets for us." The Thunderbolts were the first F-16s to fly the Close Area Support (CAS) role, flying in direct support of ground forces.

To do so required a level of communication and cooperation between services never seen before.

On one mission, for example, a ground controller reported Taliban forces massing in a compound. But it was night, with no moon, and the Falcon pilots had not night-targeting gear. But the FAC contacted some nearby Navy F-14s that did have such gear. The Navy Tomcats provided Lawhead's pilots with the targeting data they needed, and then they proceeded to drop a cloud of cluster bombs on the compound.

In the course of the 241 sorties flown the Thunderbolt squadron pilots made use of two new weapons, the wind-corrected munitions dispenser, and the Joint Direct Attack missile system, both of which provide highly accurate bombing capabilities.

In other MAC news, Bill Richey, the governor's military liason, said a series of meetings have been held with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other concerned parties concerning an environmental lawsuit filed to protect slick-spotted pepergrass on the new ETI training range.

Richey said it appears that USFWS has decided not to "fast track" the listing, as requested in the lawsuit, and instead will use the "entire, lengthy process," of hearings and studies to determine if the plant should be listed as endangered. Richey said a considerable amount of the plant can be found at the new Juniper Butte site, "but USFWS has assured us they will be able to work with the military," if the plant is listed.

Sen. Larry Craig recently suggested the entire problem could be solved "with a gallon of Round-up," and criticizied the environmentalists behind the lawsuit for threatening the nation's defense by threatening operations at the training range if the plant is listed.

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