Operation Noble Eagle deployers return

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Megan P. Lyon
  • 366th Fighter Wing Public Affairs Office
MOUNTAIN HOME AIR FORCE BASE, Idaho --  Airmen from the 391st Fighter Squadron and the 389th FS returned Jan. 2 after a deployment to provide airspace protection for the President as part of Operation Noble Eagle.

The Airmen deployed Dec. 20 to Robert Gray Army Airfield at Fort Hood, Texas, to provide air cover for the President during his Christmas vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

"We were flying in a 30-mile radius of air space above the ranch," said Maj. Meziere Richard, 391st FS chief of wing weapons and project officer for the deployment. "In total, we had 100 Mountain Home Airmen, 13 security forces Airmen from Dyess AFB, Texas, and seven jets from the 391st FS."

Operation Noble Eagle began shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, to support homeland defense and civil support missions and is manned by Air National Guard, active-duty and reserve Airmen.

The deployed group consisted of pilots, air crew and maintainers, made up of about fifty Airmen from each squadron.

"Every Airman that deployed was a volunteer," said Master Sgt. Ernest Jiron, 366th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron production office supervisor. "They sacrificed time away from their families during the holidays."

During the deployment the Airmen worked long hours to protect the President.

"We worked a rotation of 24 and 12 hour shifts while we were there," said Major Meziere. "At any given time we had two jets on 15-minute stand-by and another two jets on one-hour stand-by. For our 15-minute launch time window, we had an average launch-time of six minutes. We're pretty proud of that."

"Overall the mission was pretty quiet; we had only two real-world incidents," added the major. "It was hard to miss Christmas and New Years, but it was all part of the mission."

"It's an amazing sacrifice these young men and women made to protect the President," said Sergeant Jiron. "This deployment demonstrated our ability to deploy on short notice and showed once again the 366th Fighter Wing's capability to perform the mission efficiently."