Maine Ambulances
National Guard Bureau News
Release Date: 9/11/2003
By Master Sgt. Bob Haskell and Spc. Rachel Brune
ALI AL SALEM AIR BASE, KUWAIT - Ron Ireland needed about as much time as it takes a Black Hawk helicopter's main rotor to complete two, may be three, rotations at full speed to ponder this question.
How is the second Gulf War different from the first?
Ireland is a chief warrant officer 4 and a pilot for the Maine Army National Guard's 112th Medical Company out of Bangor, and he has rather unexpectedly returned to the Persian Gulf to fly air ambulances during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The first time, a dozen years ago, he was flying for the active Army's 36th Medical Detachment out of Fort Polk, La. He returned to his native Maine after leaving the Army and joined the Army Guard outfit in 1993, so he could keep on serving and flying.
"The first time I came here, we waited around for a long time for the war to start. It ended pretty quickly, and we left a couple of months after it was over," recalled Ireland of that 100-hour ground war against the Iraqi army in February 1991.
"The last time we didn't come to stay. This time we have. The liberation is the big difference."
So it is. The 112th's soldiers may be there for a full year, until next March, because the Army has directed that National Guard and Reserve units' tours of duty be extended to 12 months "on the ground." This time the well-traveled 112th is right in the thick of things. It is said to be the only Army Guard air ambulance company operating in Iraq and Kuwait.
Those 130 citizen-soldiers - pilots, crew chiefs, medics and mechanics - are an example of how much more heavily engaged National Guard units are the second time around. The company supported Operation Desert Storm by going to Germany to replace an active Army medical unit that was sent to the Gulf.
Now it is the 112th's helicopter crews, who are flying in the combat zone. Since early May, they have seen tracer rounds cut through the night while flying over Iraq. They have transported injured and burned Iraqi prisoners of war as well as wounded and injured American and coalition soldiers. They have even landed on and lifted off from a Navy hospital ship.
The Maine company, commanded by Maj. Mark Sullivan, is based here north of Kuwait City, but its area of responsibility includes all of Kuwait and as far north into Iraq as Baghdad.
That, Sullivan said, is equivalent to the stretch between Bangor, Maine and New York City.
Things are not, however, quite so civilized in the Persian Gulf.
Flying over vast stretches of desert can be challenging because the blowings and obscures the horizon, especially at night when the crews must rely on night vision goggles.
"There is no terrain definition at night. You can fly right into the ground if you're not paying attention," Ireland said.
And the tracers at night remind everyone that they are in "Indian country."
"I don't know that anyone's actually been shot at, but we have seen tracers in the vicinity," said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Todd Lidback. "At least we haven't had any holes in the helicopters. That's a good thing."
As of Sept. 5, the flight crews had transported 827 patients and logged about 2,200 hours since they began flying on May 2, the day after hostilities in Iraq were officially declared over.
"We're a lot busier than I thought we'd be," said Sullivan, who has detached parts of his company to three different locations in Iraq. "We flew 660 hours during 15 days in May. And we've made about 25 landings on the Navy hospital ship that was located at least 60 miles out in the Persian Gulf."
After initially supporting the Marines, the medical company now supports troops from other countries that are part of the coalition force that is helping the United States try to bring stability to Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The 32-member maintenance section keeps busy working on as many as four helicopters at a time because the sand wreaks havoc with electrical and avionics systems.
"We've replaced eight engines," said Staff Sgt. Don Shorey, the 112th's senior quality controller. "We haven't missed a mission yet because of a downed aircraft, but this sand is tough on this equipment. This is not exactly Maine."
Shorey is an old hand at this deployment business . as is Sullivan.
They are among 16 members of the company have taken part in its three major deployments - to Germany in 1990-91, to Bosnia in 1999-2000 and now to the Persian Gulf.
It is one more sign of how the Army Guard's mission has changed.
"I joined this company in September 1993, because I figured it would be a weekend a month and two weeks of training a year," Ron Ireland recalled. "And I said, 'Yeah, I can do that.' "
Ten years later, he is back in the Persian Gulf, back in a shooting war, as a National Guard soldier.
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