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C17

Operation Allies Refuge, the largest non-combatant evacuation operational in US history

by Till Daisd October 23, 2023

Eight C-17 Globemaster III aircraft, seven KC-10 Extender aircraft, and one C-5M Super Galaxy aircraft were used by Team Travis to transport 10,310 refugees and 2 million pounds of airlifted cargo

Operation Allies Refuge, which witnessed the effective evacuation of 124,334 people from Afghanistan, was the US Air Force’s (USAF) greatest non-combatant evacuation operation in US history.

“We love data. We can roll numbers and metrics into a report to demonstrate effect,” said Chief Master Sgt. Keith Scott, 60th Air Mobility Wing command chief, during an event earlier this year. “For this operation alone, I could rattle off countless more stats that attempt to capture the impact of our Travis Airmen, but so much of what made this operation incredible was not what we did… rather who did it and how.”

According to Nicholas Pilch, 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs, Operation Allies Refuge: One year later, there were 347 Airmen in total, 202 support personnel, and 143 aircrews readily available for deployment from the 60th Air Mobility Wing. That means a 45-minute notice for some airmen. These numbers, however, do not take into consideration the Travis AFB Airmen who have already been sent to other sites to assist with this operation.

“I found out on August 24. I had just gotten off a night shift, and I went to bed about 7 a.m.,” said Airman 1st Class Thomas Gustafson, 60th Aerial Port Squadron fleet apprentice. “I got a call at 10 a.m. asking if I had my COVID vaccine and my GTC (Government Travel Card), and I said yes. Approximately 45 minutes later, I was sitting in a briefing, getting ready to leave.”

Eight C-17 Globemaster IIIs, seven KC-10 Extenders, and one C-5M Super Galaxy were used by Team Travis to transport 10,310 refugees and 2 million pounds of cargo.

The medical task group at Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai International Airport consisted of a total of 62 Air Force medics. 29 of those medics, or roughly 50% of the whole Air Force medical force, were from Travis AFB.

‘We took off with 270 children, and we landed with 271.’ C-17 crew helped to deliver a baby aboard a Globemaster III carrying Afghans evacuated from Kabul — Medical support personnel from the 86th Medical Group help an Afghan mother and family off a USAF C-17, call sign Reach 828, moments after she delivered a child aboard the aircraft upon landing at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, on Aug. 21, 2021.

“We found out that we would have to go to the Hamid Karzai International Airport Hospital, which is a NATO-run hospital,” said Senior Master Sgt. Louella Campbell, 60th Medical Group and Task Force Medical-Afghan austere ground surgical team and administrator. “We were just going to go there for maybe a couple of weeks to help things settle down and potentially take over, if necessary until we completely withdrew forces, but we stayed to the end.”

Security personnel escorted aircraft to ensure their safety, and the team lead for the 60th Security Forces Squadron Phoenix Raven was Staff Sgt. Riley McFerran. McFerran related how he was 30 minutes away from his C-17 when he received a note alerting him to the possibility of two young suicide bombers on the flight line.

“When the aircraft landed, it was pitch black, and only tracer rounds could be seen flying through the air, said McFerran. “I stood there in complete darkness with my night vision goggles on, looking for any possible threats, when I saw a sea of glow sticks and hundreds of army personnel walking up to the jet with their rucksacks and all their gear on. As soon as they boarded, we loaded them up, and the reaction and relief on their faces was heartwarming to see.

“While we were leaving, the aircraft took fire. We popped off flares, but no rounds hit the aircraft, and all of us were able to leave the airfield unscathed.”

The 60th Aeromedical Evacuation Flight Nurse, Capt. Kayleigh Migaleddi was heading to the Abbey Gate in Kabul when a newborn baby was handed to her and passed over the fence, forcing her to head elsewhere.

“August 26, 2021, at 5 p.m., I was tasked by a doctor to report to the Abbey Gate to assist in a medical emergency,” said Migaleddi. “On my way to the gate, three Marines handed me a beautiful baby girl that we later called ‘Joy.’ I was told that Joy was tossed over the fence in hopes for a better life.

“While taking care of Joy, I received an alert saying there was a mass casualty event at the Abbey Gate, the gate I was headed to before Joy was handed to me. Baby Joy saved my life so I could help the patients who had arrived at the hospital.”

In addition to the effort being made by support personnel on the ground, aircrews were also expeditiously evacuating residents of Kabul. Capt. Marcial St. John, a C-17 pilot with the 21st Airlift Squadron, spoke about the challenges of transporting refugees to other theater locations and how they moved the first plane loaded with Afghan nationals to Isa Air Base, Bahrain.

The KC-10s were modified for passenger transport after Lt. Col. Gary Sain, the pilot of the 9th Air Refueling Squadron’s KC-10 Extender, and Capt. Marcelli Magday, the 660th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron’s maintenance officer in command, were expecting an aerial refueling mission.

“This is part of history. This doesn’t happen every day,” said Magday. “For me, the most rewarding part was meeting them at the bottom of the stairs and seeing the looks on their faces, thinking, ‘wow, this is what I joined the Air Force for.’”

While visiting family in Afghanistan, some who had been evacuated from that country desperately needed a lift out.

“I was talking to one of the moms of one of my kids’ teammates, and she was in Afghanistan visiting her family in July and left right before everything happened,” said Sain. “Her sister, also visiting, actually ended up getting stuck there and was evacuated on a C-17. She eventually made it out and back to the States through the way of our efforts.

“It’s like this giant operation that happens, and then it’s over now that it’s not affecting my day-to-day life,” he continued. “Every one of those 120,000 people, they’ve got a story, and they’re still living with it.”

Photo by U.S. Air Force

October 23, 2023 0 comment

Military

After 20 years of war, the withdrawal from Afghanistan is now officially over.

by Till Daisd May 16, 2023

written by Till Daisd

The last US service member to leave Afghanistan was Major General Chris Donahue, who is also the commander of the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division

The photograph in this article was taken on August 30, 2021, at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, and depicts Major General Chris Donahue, commander of the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, XVIII Airborne Corps, boarding a C-17 Globemaster III cargo aircraft. The US mission to evacuate American citizens, Afghan Special Immigrant Visa applicants, and vulnerable Afghans came to an end with Maj. Gen. Donahue’s departure from Afghanistan. Ross L. Wilson, the US’s acting ambassador to Afghanistan, was present in addition to Donahue.

According to US Central Command boss Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the final US Air Force (USAF) C-17, with the call sign Moose 85, actually cleared Afghan airspace on August 30. This effectively ended the American military’s presence in Afghanistan and put an end to the nearly 20-year conflict.

The last American military flight out of Afghanistan reportedly departed at 3:29 p.m. Eastern time, or 11:59 p.m. locally, according to Air Force Magazine, McKenzie said.

“I’m here to announce the completion of our withdrawal from Afghanistan and the end of the military mission to evacuate American citizens, third-country nationals, and vulnerable Afghans,” he said in a press briefing.

The massive evacuation effort, which began following the shockingly quick collapse of the Afghan government, evacuated 123,000 people out of the country in the previous two months, including around 6,000 Americans, according to The New York Times. An early Monday morning statement from a White House official revealed that in the previous 24 hours, about 1,200 individuals had been flown from Kabul.

With last American Soldier boarding a C-17 Afghanistan Withdrawal is Officially Complete after 20 Years of War

According to McKenzie, there were no more evacuees in the airport when US troops boarded the final flight out of Kabul. Less than 200 Americans were still in Afghanistan as of Monday night, and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken stated that the US would assist those who wished to depart. He claimed that it was challenging to provide an accurate estimate because some dual citizens are torn between staying in Afghanistan, where they have family and lived there for years, and leaving.

“If an American in Afghanistan tells us they want to stay for now, and in a week or month or year they reach out and say, ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ we will help them leave,” Mr. Blinken said.

The State Department has at various points advised Americans not to enter particular gates near the airport because of security threats (not from the Taliban but from the Islamic State-Khorasan branch).

ISIS-K, as the group is often referred to, carried out a horrific attack on August 26 that left 13 US service members and a large number of Afghans dead outside an airport gate. In response, the US conducted an airstrike that hit a truck carrying explosives in Kabul and killed two ISIS-K planners.

Equipment had to be destroyed as American troops left in order to prevent it from falling into Taliban hands. 73 aircraft were also destroyed in addition to several armored vehicles and Humvees by the military—“most of them were non-mission-capable, to begin with, but certainly they’ll never be able to be flown again,” McKenzie said.

Photo by Jack Hol US Central Command

May 16, 2023 0 comment

Military

The story of the female USAF pilot who followed in her mother’s footsteps and trained to be a C-17 pilot

by Till Daisd April 24, 2023

written by Till Daisd

Today, only slightly more than 5% of LaRivee’s job area is occupied by women, compared to her mother’s rarity as a female cadet in 1976

According to Senior Airman Sam Salopek of the 349th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs in the article Female pilot follows in mother’s boot steps, Capt. Jamie LaRivee, a C-17 Globemaster III pilot with the 21st Airlift Squadron (AS) at Travis Air Force Base (AFB), saw her mother as a role model and watched her succeed in an Air Force career.

“She was in the first class of women at the Air Force Academy,” said LaRivee. “That was a big piece of her life that shaped her completely, but it was also a big piece of my life too.”

After completing high school, LaRivee followed in her mother’s footsteps and enrolled at the Air Force Academy, where she majored in operations research and minored in German. Today, only slightly more than 5% of LaRivee’s job area is occupied by women, compared to her mother’s rarity as a female cadet in 1976.

“Not every little girl grows up dreaming to be a pilot,” LaRivee said. “It’s not a common perception for women to be in flying in general, let alone for women to be in the military.”

She had the chance to fly gliders while at the academy. She remembered how it seemed like she was driving her own thrilling roller coaster. She was determined to succeed as an aviator after that.

“There are still biases out there, and sometimes there are people who make assumptions,” LaRivee pointed out. “They’re not so sure you can be as qualified as a male pilot, but that just makes you want to work even harder to show you’re just as capable.”

“In aviation, it doesn’t matter if you’re male or female- you’re a flyer,” explained Barbara Brewer, the 21st AS unit program coordinator. “Your gender doesn’t change that ability.”

“My mother faced a lot more challenges and a lot more barriers,” added LaRivee. “There were not as many women who had gone before her to pave the way to prove that women were just as capable as men if they worked hard at it.”

LaRivee considers her gender to be a proud aspect of who she is. She is conscious of the challenges being a female soldier presents, though, and she embraces them as a chance to perform above and beyond expectations.

“You can’t pretend that we are built the exact same way as men. But, there are so many ways that we can, if not overcome it, become better,” LaRivee said.

Throughout a military career, challenges can arise that put one’s self-assurance to the test. LaRivee was a member of a crew that was mainly made up of women while flying a mission. She recalls that a passenger who was surprised that he had been unable to distinguish between men and women piloting the aircraft peered into the flight deck. This remark did not cause LaRivee to doubt her abilities as a woman, but rather it increased her self-assurance in her abilities.

“If you face challenges, don’t let them get you down, let them inspire you to do better,” LaRivee said. “There are so many women in aviation who have done amazing things, and there have always been people who doubted them.”

It’s noteworthy that LaRivee’s mother made a speech in 1996 that emphasized the value of women in the military.

“One of the biggest challenges of being a woman in the military has and will continue to be balancing strength with sensitivity, confidence with humility,” said retired Lt. Col. Marianne LaRivee, in a speech for the Senior Executives Symposium Spouses Program. “We want to show that we can do our jobs well while also staying true to ourselves as women-daughters, sisters, and mothers. That we can do what our country asks of us while also living up to the cultural expectations and responsibilities of our gender.”

Source: As reported on top of the original story, this feature is part of the “Through Airmen’s Eyes” series. These stories focus on individual Airmen, highlighting their Air Force stories.

Photo by Senior Airman Sam Salopek and Heide Couch / U.S. Air Force

April 24, 2023 0 comment