Off to Afghanistan, again

Editor's Note: This is the first in a series of three posts by Tech. Sgt. Jerome Baysmore's about his recent trip to Afghanistan. Sergeant Baysmore is a member of the 375th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs Office.

I got deployment orders to Afghanistan, and this time I was bringing journalists with me.

Our team met up in Washington D.C., and soon left for Joint Base Andrews, Md.

I was mainly there to provide background information and assist in travel plans from the United States, to Germany and then Afghanistan.

As a recent member of the 375th Air Mobility Wing at Scott Air Force Base, Il, and Air Mobility Command, this trip would also help shorten my learning curve from sleek, pointy Air Force fighters and Air Force Global Strike Command bombers to AMC’s heavy haulers.

Our first trek was from Andrews AFB on a KC-135 Stratotanker with an Aeromedical Evacuation team from Ramstein AB, Germany. The team was a little tired but fun to fly with, they were returning from moving patients from Europe to Walter Reed Medical Center. AE teams like this one have evacuated more than 147,000 patients from the battlefield to higher levels of care since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

As most AF people know, mobility aircraft aren’t built for passenger comfort, and this New Hampshire Air National Guard tanker was no exception. The KC-135 is capable of moving passengers—“pax” for short—and cargo. But its main mission is aerial refueling, KC-135s and its sister tanker, the KC-10 Extender, have delivered more than 11.63 billion pounds of fuel—enough to fill about 2,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools since Sept. 11, 2001.

As most seasoned pax know, you should bring a heavy blanket and or sleeping bag for the flight—we already checked that box.

People say experience is the best teacher, so let me fill you in: unless you’re acclimating yourself for the next winter Olympics, bring the blanket, sleeping bag and wear a skull cap for the flight.

This leg from Andrews AFB to Ramstein went by rather quickly because tankers are known to be among the fastest—yet coldest—of the AF heavy haulers.

I must also admit that traveling with an AE team was great; they had enough mattress pads to share, which helped turn this flight to one of the best ones I’ve had recently.

Once the loadmaster cleared us to do so, we stretched out on the floor, bundled up, and slept as our pax flight hours racked up.

As we landed and walked along the Ramstein flightline to the terminal, the journalists got to see the other AMC aircraft along the ramp. Several C-5s, C-17s and our recently landed tanker lined the ramp.

We looked around before climbing the stairs into the terminal and shared the same sentiment: AMC....Ain't Mobility Cool?