A-10s over Kosovo (illustrations removed)

The first three days at Gioia del Colle were absolutely the most difficult. Many of us had already put in a few very long days to get the jets from Aviano to Gioia. Those who had worked a lengthy shift to generate and launch the jets at Aviano jumped on the C-130 for a two-hour flight to Gioia and then went right to work to get our Hogs ready to meet the Monday frag. We did our best to ensure that our technicians stuck to a 12-hour schedule, but that didn’t always work out. It was easy to have people working over 24 hours with little more than a nap. We cut our maintenance crews back to the minimum necessary to prepare the aircraft to meet our CSAR alert for Sunday and get the first eight aircraft ready for Monday. We prepped six front lines and two spares to cover Monday and put everyone else on shift, letting them get some much-needed and well-deserved rest.

Five A-10s and about 70 personnel from the 74th FS at Pope were headed our way. They had been holding at Spangdahlem until our redeployment fate was decided, and then held a few additional days to let us settle in. With all that was going on with our own redeployment, inheriting additional aircraft and personnel added to my list of things to do and worry about. Some unique maintenance issues had to be resolved as we molded aircraft and personnel from Pope and Spangdahlem into a deployed unit under the air and space expeditionary force (AEF) concept. We did what we had to do by the book and applied common sense as much as possible. We encouraged team integrity by letting the dedicated crew chiefs work their own jets, and we took the team approach to the rest of the maintenance workload. Once we got through the initial growing pains, things seemed to work well. Everyone shared the goals of generating safe and reliable aircraft to support NATO’s missions and of bringing all of our pilots home safely.

\Photo: A1C David Hatch from the 23d Fighter Group, Pope AFB, and SrA Jeff Burns from the 81st FS, Spangdahlem AB, troubleshoot an IFF write-up

We faced several other challenges in addition to a hectic redeployment with an almost impossible timeline. We were in a small town in southern Italy with none of the “conveniences” of home. We arrived on a weekend and were pretty much unable to work any support issues that involved the locals, such as portable toilets, bottled water, or any type of eating facility for our troops. The RAF and the Italian air force were gracious enough to allow us to use their facilities to cover our needs for the weekend, and that enabled most of our day shifters to get a good meal. We were able to scrounge up some “meals ready to eat” (MRE) for our night shifters, and a few of the other troops were able to go off base before their shift and find grocery stores or restaurants to meet their needs. Positive attitudes and a strong sense of mission were the keys to making the redeployment work.

\Photo: Fully integrated—81st and 74th jets on the Gioia flight line

We were not able to provide such basic needs as bathrooms, bottled water, and meals for the first three days—even so, I heard absolutely no complaints. For the most part, everyone was too busy and tired to worry about it, and I think just knowing the problem was being worked was enough for the majority. Everyone’s dedication was incredible. We had to order some people to leave work because we knew they had been there way over their 12-hour limit. Attitude was everything. I cannot say enough about the effort put forth by the maintainers—those on the flight line and those in support roles. Our liquid oxygen for the first day’s flying was courtesy of an innovative liquid-fuels specialist. Our equipment to fill the bottles was still en route. The specialist knew that Brindisi AB was just an hour or so down the road and he took all of our aircraft bottles and brought them back full. Had he not done so, our first flights on Monday would have not made it off the ground. It was this sort of dedication and creativity that kept us in the fight until our cargo caught up with us a few days later.

Once our equipment was in place, we began to settle into a routine. Our hotel was a 75-minute drive away. Adding two-and-a-half hours of driving to a 12-hour shift wasn’t the route we wanted to take. Once we resolved some initial scheduling issues and adjusted the shuttle schedule, the bus system worked great. It was definitely the way to go.