Airmen and C-130s from Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark., recently returned from a four-month deployment supporting combat operations in the Middle East and Africa.
The Airmen and aircraft from the 41st Airlift Squadron, along with Airmen from the 19th Operations Group, 19th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, 19th Logistics Readiness Squadron, and 19th Operations Support Squadron supported C-130J operations in U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and U.S. Africa Command. They returned home to Arkansas between Jan. 19-26.
Air Force C-130 squadrons have been deploying in their entirety, as opposed to piecemeal from multiple units, since September 2019. Air Mobility Command began this model with KC-135s in August 2019, and C-130s followed suit the next month. Little Rock and Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, operate under a “4/12 deployment initiative, which allows the airlift squadrons at each base [to] receive a full year of dwell time before a four-month deployment, according to a release.