A Strike In Time
By the time we got to the scene, we heard a call on the Guard frequency for any coalition aircraft immediately. The guy on the radio was not composed at all. He was screaming. We got their coordinates and arrived at about two in the morning. The weather was awful with an overcast layer of clouds about 10,000 feet and thick enough to block out the starlight. The ground was black. They didn't want to use their infrared lights because they suspected that the enemy had NVGs and could see them. So, they had no way of guiding us. We circled in their general location for a while before I saw the guy's firefly, which is a small nine-volt battery with an NVG-compatible light source that blinks. I didn't see any truck lights or any firefights at this point, but I could hear the gunfire in the background when he keyed the microphone. He located the hostiles north of his position, but he never anchored his own position. Once I got the firefly located and took a mark on it with the targeting pod, I roped him with my infrared marker and he confirmed that we had his spot. He said the Iraqi soldiers had abandoned their vehicles and moved to some hills on foot. His radio calls made it sound like a thousand troops were about to overrun his position. I asked him to confirm that if I drop a bomb two kilometers north of his mark, the drop would be deconflicted with his position. He confirmed it. I reconfirmed the location twice more and then rolled in with a GBU-12. I pickled a bomb off in a thirty-degree dive drop into a black hole four kilometers north of his position, adding two kilometers for a safety margin. The bomb exploded. I went off target and popped flares and dropped chaff. I had flown down to about 5,000 feet, so I climbed back up to altitude. The guys on the ground saw my flares, heard the explosion, and confirmed that the bombs helped their situation.
     — Capt. Brian Wolfe

Media Attention
I also performed as the PA officer, so I would have to do things like get up at four in the morning and talk to NPR live. Having the media on board was a challenge. They wanted to be in your face. Getting guys to talk to the press was like pulling teeth. We were there to support the national interests, not to draw attention to ourselves.
     — Lt. Hartley Postlethwaite

VQ-1 Background
VQ-1 had four crews in the war at any one time. VQ-2, home based at Rota, Spain, was there, as well, with two crews. The World Watchers were performing reconnaissance missions in Afghanistan during the buildup to the war. During OIF, the unit didn't have any more missions into Afghanistan. As the war in Iraq scaled down, they revisited Afghanistan. The crew day was typically sixteen to eighteen hours preflight to postflight. Crews would have an eighteen-hour day, have twelve to fifteen hours off, then do another mission. A number of missions lasted more than ten hours.

118TH Airlift Wing Background
The unit was activated in October 2001, having been doing Homeland Defense missions. Crews were on a trip to Arizona, learning to fly using night-vision goggles during the last week of February, and a week later, they found out they were deploying. Six months later, they returned to Nashville, but only a couple of weeks after that, some of the unit's crews were sent back to the theater. The 118th was tasked on 3 March, and three aircraft a day were deployed on 4, 5, and 6 March. Ten of the unit's aircraft and all of its crews were sent. It required two or three days to get in theater. The 118th AW was stationed with seven other units—six Guard and one Reserve. There were forty-six C130s plus two squadrons of F-15s. At Tabuk, the 118th AW was the lead C-130 unit. The wing commander was an F-15 pilot from Langley AFB, Virginia, and the vice commander was a C-130 pilot stationed at Air Mobility Command headquarters at Scott AFB, Illinois. Col. Randy Jones, from the 118th AW, served as the operations group commander.

Nothing New
There is nothing aerial porters don't see—everything from whole blood being shipped over, to wounded, to body bags, to fences, to boats. You name it, we load and unload it.
     — SMSgt. Clinton Foster