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The C-130J Hercules screeched to a halt at a remote airfield in Afghanistan. Inside, it cast just enough green-hued light for two Fly Away Security Team members to help one another put on their gear. Vest, gloves, eye protection, a helmet fitted with night-vision goggles.
The two stand in the back as the cargo bay door opens, their rifles at the ready. Viewed through night vision, their figures are silhouetted against the towering mountains surrounding the airfield. As soon as the aircraft comes to a halt, they jump out and take up their posts. No one can leave until they have secured the airfield.
This is a typical mission for 455th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron FAST members. They travel around the Middle East, protecting aircraft, aircrew and cargo at unsecure locations and preventing hijacking attempts in the air.
“It’s a high operations tempo,” said Staff Sgt. Rashon Battle, 455th ESFS FAST NCO-in-charge. “Sometimes there are three or four missions a day, some of them 13 or 14 hours in the air.”
They are responsible for providing security at more than 30 airstrips in Afghanistan alone. If aircraft belonging to the 774th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron are stopping at one of those 30 austere airstrips designated as requiring extra security, FAST members go with them.
They are the first out of the aircraft, and the last on.
The 12-person team currently deployed here to Bagram are all from the same unit at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey. Since arriving in October, the unit has gone on more than 200 missions and clocked nearly 1,000 flight hours collectively.
“They work hard and they do a good job,” said Battle, a Burlington, New Jersey native. “We spend a lot of time together, so its it’s awesome being here with people you know from back home.”
In addition to their typical security forces training, FAST members must go through additional training specific to their mission here. They go through a gamut of combatives; evasion and conduct after capture; aircrew; and physical endurance courses at the U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center, also at JB MDL.
The courses prepare them to defend the aircraft and aircrew if necessary.
In the pitch-black of one of those austere airfields, the two FAST members pace back and forth, heads on swivels, ready to do just that.
| Date Taken: | 02.17.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 02.22.2017 07:19 |
| Story ID: | 224261 |
| Location: | BAGRAM AIRFIELD, AF |
| Hometown: | BURLINGTON, NJ, US |
| Web Views: | 154 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, FAST protect aircraft, aircrew, by Katherine Spessa, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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