A pair of maintainers with the 386th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron took a trip to Mosul, Iraq, to rescue a stranded C-130 cargo airplane. SSgt. David Harrelson and SrA. Brian Kundick, both deployed to Iraq from Pope AFB, N.C., conferred with the C-130 flight engineer SSgt. Robert Alexander, who reported leaking hydraulic fluid. Harrelson crawled into the tail to find a failed elevator booster pack—the device that enables the aircraft to elevate and descend—while Kundick went to work on uncooperative access panel bolts outside the aircraft. It was late night and Kundick could see where security forces were spotlighting for snipers only a few hundred yards away. All in a day’s work—Harrelson noted, “It’s not unusual to find parts that age aboard a 42-year-old aircraft.” They finished the job the next day.
Less than a day after arriving in the Middle East, F-15E Strike Eagles from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C. defended Israel from an Iranian attack in April 2024. DUDE flight, four F-15Es from the 335th Fighter Squadron, downed two dozen Iranian drones in roughly 45 minutes.