Air Force security teams give VIP flights in Afghanistan added defense

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Airman 1st Class Lucas Tripp, Staff Sgt. Kevin Parke and Senior Airman Alan Batema, from the left, all security forces airman deployed from Davis-Montham Air Force Base, await transportion after returning to Bagram from a combat mission providing security for distinguished visitors and high ranking local police to a remote airfield in Kunduz, Afghanistan. Tripp, Parke and Batema are part of the 445th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron Fly Away Security Team specially trained to accompany military transport aircraft to airfields that do not have established security.


Air Force security teams give VIP flights in Afghanistan added defense
By Scott Schonauer, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, May 10, 2008

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan — The cargo plane’s ramp opens and blinding sunlight and swirling dust assault the eyes of passengers and crew.

Seconds later, with the C-130 Hercules’ four engine props still whirling, three armed security forces airmen rush out the back and take their positions. They guard the plane’s tail with M-4 rifles as Afghan police and government officials aboard the plane disembark at this ramshackle outpost littered with war debris and mangled plane carcasses.

“If somebody is going to take potshots at somebody, and they see us come out,” Staff Sgt. Kevin Parke, 25, of Spring Lake Park, Minn, said afterward, “they’re probably not going to do it.”

Protecting Air Force cargo planes in the air and on the ground is the mission of these specially trained squads called Fly-Away Security Teams, or FAST for short. The two- to six-person teams travel aboard aircraft whenever Afghan government officials or detainees are aboard. Pilots and crewmembers also never leave base without them when they travel to remote locations, where there often is little security and the runway is nothing but dirt.

The Air Force has modeled these airborne security units on the Air Mobility Command’s “Phoenix Raven” program, which conducts similar missions but requires airmen to go through training that is more extensive.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=54683