Fly Away Security

When on a Fly Away Security Team (FAST) your mission is to keep the Air Crew, aircraft, passengers, and cargo safe. Meanwhile, the mission of the Air Crew is to fly into austere and dangerous locations to deliver passengers and cargo. Why they gotta make our job so hard? As FAST, we’re obviously there for a reason. The risk and need are clear. We would fly into countries with the highest rates of terrorism or plain simple conflict zones. Resupplying troops or bringing them home.

When training for FAST or similar deployments they emphasize that we are alone out there. The only thing that will see us through is our skills, team members, and the Air Crew. While at forward operating bases, we might be able to call on backup, maybe. If we notice an issue we have to handle it, and worst case scenario get the aircraft off the ground as fast as possible. I was 23 at the time, young for a Staff Sergeant. Responsible for the lives of my 12 team members and whoever else might be on that plane. So when we trained, I took any failure or misunderstanding on my part, as a factor that could get my team killed.

Fortunately, the reality of our mission was a little more manageable. Most locations we landed at had liaisons, foreign nation partners, or forward operating base teams set up to assist us. There were only a handful of Airfields where this was not the case. It was also our job to assess the risks of these Airfields. Having a proper perimeter, entry denial, active and static patrols are key to any airport’s security. One Airfield in particular had none of these.

We needed to land for fuel. There was no way around it, had to land there. Stepping off the back of the C-130 set my anxiety into overdrive. It took me a few moments to realize why. There was no one and no thing around for miles. No fences, no security patrols, there was barely an Airfield to speak of. Just a single building by the landing strip and one fuel truck. A reddish tan rocky desert covered every inch of the horizon. Except for a looming steep hill to the south. Even the sky blended with the ground. A hazy grayish red from all the windswept sand and dust. The odd uniformity of the location just added to my sense of unease. My eyes constantly darting over the horizon and southward hill. I knew that we should be safe, but I couldn’t shake the anxiety until we left the ground again.

A few other locations instilled me with a similar anxiety. One Airfield was completely surrounded by dense jungle. Couldn’t see more than three feet in without foliage walling off everything behind it. Another had a clay building village right up against the fence to the Airfield. People would come to watch us as we landed and refueled. There was something heart warming about seeing the children, just curious about what we were doing or maybe in awe of the occasional tank that would be resting in the back of the C-130. Again, I should know that we were safe. We would land at that location fairly regularly. Still, I couldn’t trust the routine and always had a nagging concern that there was something else I couldn’t see.

              There are other experiences I would like to include in this but frankly I don’t have the energy or writing skills to do them justice. Your first time seeing a red flare light up the night sky, your aircraft getting shot at, or nearly getting knocked out of the air by a sandstorm, isn’t very easy to put into words.

              I spent an entire year flying in and out of forward operating bases and partner nations. Most weeks I would only get a day or two in a proper bed. Sleeping in hammocks or the rough cot seats of a C-130 the rest of the time. It was actually a lot of fun overall. I got to see countries that most Idahoans don’t even know about. Interact with people from all kinds of cultures. Even got stuck for 3 weeks at a location where we didn’t have to pull security. Longest vacation I ever took, all because one little part on a C-130 couldn’t get replaced. The travel and ever vigilant mindset took it’s toll though. While I appreciate that period of time, it was one of the factors that led me to leaving the Air Force.