Sitting Here, Fighting In Iraq
Airmen at Langley Air Force Base watch the war to help forces deployed on the ground and in the air.
By Stephanie Heinatz
Newport News Daily Press
April 23, 2006
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE -- The airmen sit in a windowless room.
They watch the sands of Iraq. The people moving through the urban streets. The roadsides possibly littered with explosives.
If they see something suspicious, their hearts race as if they were right there on the ground.
They talk to pilots of U-2 surveillance planes flying over Iraq. They send instant messages to airmen flying remote-control Predators: "Zoom in here. ... Fly over there."
In some instances, they communicate directly with troops on the ground, warning them that insurgents are sneaking out the back door or alerting them that the people at the end of the block are friendly.
These men and women will end their shifts and walk into the safety of Langley Air Force Base, but they deeply feel the intensity of the war. It weighs on them, follows them home.
"We may not be in Iraq," Air Force Col. Mike Archuleta said, "but we are engaged in war."
The airmen Archuleta commands are part of the 497th Intelligence Group, 480th Intelligence Wing.
Last year, they helped gather intelligence that led to the capture of a high-ranking al-Qaida operative in Iraq. On March 28, they watched Predator footage of three insurgents digging a hole in a road near Baghdad, preparing a roadside bomb. They passed the information along, and the subsequent missile strike killed the would-be bombers.
"My mother ... will see something on the news and ask me if I'd heard about it," said Tech. Sgt. Barbara A. McGuire, an intelligence analyst. "Sometimes, it was a mission I'd just worked on."
Her mother never would have known that because most of the airmen shy away from talking about their work.
"It's not what we do that's classified," said Master Sgt. Robert Jones, "it's how we do it."
How do you brag about helping locate 32 roadside bombs last year without feeling like you're giving away secrets? When you get home from work, how do you tell your family that you watched a battle unfold?
How do you explain what it feels like to watch U.S. troops being killed when you're 7,000 miles away and have no way to help other than to pass information along as quickly as you can?
"When you're in Iraq, when you finish the day, you go back to your hooch (dwelling) where everyone has been through the same thing," Archuleta said. "Here, we go back home -- but with war on our shoulders."
First Lt. Mike Petrella, a mission commander with the group, knows that "the hardest part is shutting it off. It keeps you up at night. It's there when you wake up."
That's because, Senior Airman Justin Calvaruzo said, "our mistakes aren't 'We burned your omelet, I'll make you another.' Our mistakes put people's lives in danger."
There are two outcomes to any campaign, Archuleta said: "Either it was an operational success or an intelligence failure."
Getting more raw intelligence more quickly to the troops on the ground has long been a push by officials at the U.S. Joint Forces Command in Norfolk and Suffolk.
"When you're on the ground, there's a lot of things happening at once," Archuleta said.
Through a process that begins with officials at Central Command -- the military unit that oversees operations in Iraq -- the intelligence group tries to make that picture more clear.
Central Command officials tell the Air Force when and where they need one of the surveillance planes -- manned or unmanned -- to fly.
The raw intelligence goes from the aircraft to Langley.
Unlike the Central Intelligence Agency -- which often looks at intelligence for its long-term value -- "We send out the information almost immediately," Archuleta said. "We're focused on what's happening right now."
It isn't like watching a baseball game.
"Nothing happens for eight innings," Archuleta said. "So you walk away to get a drink, only to come back and see that still nothing happened.
"Here, we can't afford to walk away."
There are times when the airmen will watch a target for days, he said, looking around "to see if civilians are in the area, if children are in the area. We need to, have to, know what will be hurt by a strike."
If they see a group digging a hole in the road to plant a roadside bomb, the planes can track them back to their safe house, and Langley's airmen can help organize a strike.
"I remember one day, I walked into the room, and they were going crazy," Archuleta said. "They'd just found their third roadside bomb of the day."
But only the ones that they don't find make the news.
Some days, the airmen provide convoy security. Some days, they're ordered to help find survivors of, say, a helicopter crash, which they did last year.
"If I could tell the public anything about what goes on here, it would be how important what these guys do is," Jones said. "And how thankless it can be. And how hard they work."
They not only work long hours and long days but "our guys are here for three, maybe four years at a time," Archuleta said.
In the past, the intelligence community had some of the worst retention rates in the Air Force, he said.
"The problem was people are involved in the war for three to four years at a time," he said.
It's not that it's the same as being on the ground for the standard one-year rotation. It's the weight of the responsibility, the seriousness of what can pop up on the screen.
Crew shifts have changed, making the time spent staring at Iraq more bearable.
Technology -- in some ways, doctrine -- has also improved.
During the Persian Gulf War, Langley's airmen had to pack up and deploy to the desert to sort through the intelligence there. They left every six months for six months.
New technology allows them to do it from Langley.
A chaplain is assigned to the unit, as one of the mission commanders, but Petrella tries to praise his crew every chance that he gets.
"I've been around long enough to pick up on the emotions," he said.
"After the official parts of a mission are done, I try to take the airmen to go talk. They need to divert their attention, even if just for a minute, to take the stress away."
Because tomorrow, he said, they'll be back in Iraq again.
Eyes in the sky
Most of the footage that Langley intelligence airmen analyze comes from the Predator, but they also look at surveillance footage from the U-2 and Global Hawk. Here's a look at the three planes:
PREDATOR -- The remote-control Predator was made to be an armed reconnaissance plane to strike critical targets. In Iraq and Afghanistan, however, it's mostly collecting intelligence on enemy positions and providing a bird's-eye view for commanders during battle. It can fly up to 25,000 feet and carries the Hellfire missile, which it has used in Iraq against insurgents planting roadside bombs.
GLOBAL HAWK -- In near-real time, the unmanned Global Hawk can scan large geographic areas and send high-resolution images to Langley and military commanders. It can fly as high as 65,000 feet and for as long as 35 hours. Once it's programmed, the Global Hawk can take off, fly, return and land by itself.
U-2 -- The U-2 is a manned single-seat, single-engine, high-altitude plane that collects images sent to military officials worldwide. The pilot, much like astronauts, wears a full-pressure flight suit because the plane typically flies at altitudes over 70,000 feet. The first U-2 flew in 1955, and in the late 1950s, it flew over the Soviet Union to gather intelligence on the Soviet army.
By Stephanie Heinatz
Newport News Daily Press
April 23, 2006
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE -- The airmen sit in a windowless room.
They watch the sands of Iraq. The people moving through the urban streets. The roadsides possibly littered with explosives.
If they see something suspicious, their hearts race as if they were right there on the ground.
They talk to pilots of U-2 surveillance planes flying over Iraq. They send instant messages to airmen flying remote-control Predators: "Zoom in here. ... Fly over there."
In some instances, they communicate directly with troops on the ground, warning them that insurgents are sneaking out the back door or alerting them that the people at the end of the block are friendly.
These men and women will end their shifts and walk into the safety of Langley Air Force Base, but they deeply feel the intensity of the war. It weighs on them, follows them home.
"We may not be in Iraq," Air Force Col. Mike Archuleta said, "but we are engaged in war."
The airmen Archuleta commands are part of the 497th Intelligence Group, 480th Intelligence Wing.
Last year, they helped gather intelligence that led to the capture of a high-ranking al-Qaida operative in Iraq. On March 28, they watched Predator footage of three insurgents digging a hole in a road near Baghdad, preparing a roadside bomb. They passed the information along, and the subsequent missile strike killed the would-be bombers.
"My mother ... will see something on the news and ask me if I'd heard about it," said Tech. Sgt. Barbara A. McGuire, an intelligence analyst. "Sometimes, it was a mission I'd just worked on."
Her mother never would have known that because most of the airmen shy away from talking about their work.
"It's not what we do that's classified," said Master Sgt. Robert Jones, "it's how we do it."
How do you brag about helping locate 32 roadside bombs last year without feeling like you're giving away secrets? When you get home from work, how do you tell your family that you watched a battle unfold?
How do you explain what it feels like to watch U.S. troops being killed when you're 7,000 miles away and have no way to help other than to pass information along as quickly as you can?
"When you're in Iraq, when you finish the day, you go back to your hooch (dwelling) where everyone has been through the same thing," Archuleta said. "Here, we go back home -- but with war on our shoulders."
First Lt. Mike Petrella, a mission commander with the group, knows that "the hardest part is shutting it off. It keeps you up at night. It's there when you wake up."
That's because, Senior Airman Justin Calvaruzo said, "our mistakes aren't 'We burned your omelet, I'll make you another.' Our mistakes put people's lives in danger."
There are two outcomes to any campaign, Archuleta said: "Either it was an operational success or an intelligence failure."
Getting more raw intelligence more quickly to the troops on the ground has long been a push by officials at the U.S. Joint Forces Command in Norfolk and Suffolk.
"When you're on the ground, there's a lot of things happening at once," Archuleta said.
Through a process that begins with officials at Central Command -- the military unit that oversees operations in Iraq -- the intelligence group tries to make that picture more clear.
Central Command officials tell the Air Force when and where they need one of the surveillance planes -- manned or unmanned -- to fly.
The raw intelligence goes from the aircraft to Langley.
Unlike the Central Intelligence Agency -- which often looks at intelligence for its long-term value -- "We send out the information almost immediately," Archuleta said. "We're focused on what's happening right now."
It isn't like watching a baseball game.
"Nothing happens for eight innings," Archuleta said. "So you walk away to get a drink, only to come back and see that still nothing happened.
"Here, we can't afford to walk away."
There are times when the airmen will watch a target for days, he said, looking around "to see if civilians are in the area, if children are in the area. We need to, have to, know what will be hurt by a strike."
If they see a group digging a hole in the road to plant a roadside bomb, the planes can track them back to their safe house, and Langley's airmen can help organize a strike.
"I remember one day, I walked into the room, and they were going crazy," Archuleta said. "They'd just found their third roadside bomb of the day."
But only the ones that they don't find make the news.
Some days, the airmen provide convoy security. Some days, they're ordered to help find survivors of, say, a helicopter crash, which they did last year.
"If I could tell the public anything about what goes on here, it would be how important what these guys do is," Jones said. "And how thankless it can be. And how hard they work."
They not only work long hours and long days but "our guys are here for three, maybe four years at a time," Archuleta said.
In the past, the intelligence community had some of the worst retention rates in the Air Force, he said.
"The problem was people are involved in the war for three to four years at a time," he said.
It's not that it's the same as being on the ground for the standard one-year rotation. It's the weight of the responsibility, the seriousness of what can pop up on the screen.
Crew shifts have changed, making the time spent staring at Iraq more bearable.
Technology -- in some ways, doctrine -- has also improved.
During the Persian Gulf War, Langley's airmen had to pack up and deploy to the desert to sort through the intelligence there. They left every six months for six months.
New technology allows them to do it from Langley.
A chaplain is assigned to the unit, as one of the mission commanders, but Petrella tries to praise his crew every chance that he gets.
"I've been around long enough to pick up on the emotions," he said.
"After the official parts of a mission are done, I try to take the airmen to go talk. They need to divert their attention, even if just for a minute, to take the stress away."
Because tomorrow, he said, they'll be back in Iraq again.
Eyes in the sky
Most of the footage that Langley intelligence airmen analyze comes from the Predator, but they also look at surveillance footage from the U-2 and Global Hawk. Here's a look at the three planes:
PREDATOR -- The remote-control Predator was made to be an armed reconnaissance plane to strike critical targets. In Iraq and Afghanistan, however, it's mostly collecting intelligence on enemy positions and providing a bird's-eye view for commanders during battle. It can fly up to 25,000 feet and carries the Hellfire missile, which it has used in Iraq against insurgents planting roadside bombs.
GLOBAL HAWK -- In near-real time, the unmanned Global Hawk can scan large geographic areas and send high-resolution images to Langley and military commanders. It can fly as high as 65,000 feet and for as long as 35 hours. Once it's programmed, the Global Hawk can take off, fly, return and land by itself.
U-2 -- The U-2 is a manned single-seat, single-engine, high-altitude plane that collects images sent to military officials worldwide. The pilot, much like astronauts, wears a full-pressure flight suit because the plane typically flies at altitudes over 70,000 feet. The first U-2 flew in 1955, and in the late 1950s, it flew over the Soviet Union to gather intelligence on the Soviet army.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 9:54 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home