Strike Eagles fly dawn patrol

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Samuel Morse
  • 455th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan --  It's two o'clock in the morning. A bus pulls into a parking space at Camp Cunningham in the heart of Bagram Air Field. Aircrew members, still wiping the sleep from their eyes, climb on board and head out. While the rest of Bagram sleeps, these F-15E Strike Eagle pilots and weapons systems officers get ready to protect coalition forces yet again in their ever-vigilant close-air support mission.

This is dawn patrol.

"Dawn patrol, put simply, is just a time that we fly. This is the first go for the day shift, getting up real early before the sun rises," said Capt. Vanessa Mahan, a weapons systems officer deployed from Seymour-Johnson Air Force Base, N.C.

While just the thought of waking up so early may seem daunting, pilots and WSOs have other difficulties to face. The air and ground crews must perform a thorough preflight inspection with little more than dim illumination from their flashlights. One oversight in preflight and setup could mean the difference between mission success and failure - the difference of life and death for the aircrew and the coalition forces they protect.

It doesn't get easier with sunrise. Blinding light of the new day's sun washes out instrument panels and the glare makes even routine tasks, like refueling, a challenge.

For Mahan though, it's also a rewarding experience. She enjoys waking up early and seeing the sun rise each day.

"If you go east, it's all mountains up there, and in the winter they're all snow-covered. It's gorgeous. This really is a beautiful country," said the St. John, Ind., native.

However, the beauty doesn't distract her from her mission. As a weapons systems officer, she is charged with making sure her F-15E's munitions are used timely, effectively and precisely. She talks with the joint terminal attack controllers on the ground, often when they are just waking up. In the ground-based fighting in Afghanistan, the F-15Es perform close-air support for coalition forces.

"CAS is my favorite," said Mahan, "for the main reason that I think its one of our, as WSOs, primary roles, where we get to shine."

Her tenacity for flying and being a WSO stems back from her freshman year in the Air Force ROTC detatchment at Purdue University. She had already developed a love for flying from her father, a private pilot and instructor, and wanted to be one of the best. Poor eyesight prevented her from becoming a pilot, but without a second though, she embraced a career as an F-15E WSO.

Nearing the end of her extended deployment here at Bagram, Mahan still expresses a deep commitment and love for her profession.

"When things go bad for the guys on the ground, it's your time to put a stop to it ... That's probably one of the best feelings when you know you're helping them out - you're saving their lives by putting bombs on target on time."

Flying over Afghanistan as the new day breaks, Mahan gets a feeling of hope; hope the new day will be better than the last in this war-torn country. When asked what she would like to say to everyone back home, her answer was simple: "We're doing the right thing."