Photo: JERRY LARA, San Antonio Express-News

Aircraft based in San Antonio take part in major NATO operation along Russian border

RIGA, Lativa The 22 soldiers in a chilly, darkened seating area toward the rear of the C-5M Super Galaxy bounced and jerked as its rear wheels hit a rain-slicked runway in this small Baltic country bordering Russia.

Air Force Reserve Capt. Mike Raggio of San Antonio adjusted the rudder to align the 28-wheel landing gear with the center line. Thrust reversers slowed the aircraft to an approach speed, then it rolled to a stop and the soldiers began unloading three UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.

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The arrival here of the 10th Mountain Division's 2-10 Assault Helicopter Battalion last week was mostly unnoticed in the United States. But it was a major event in Latvia , a member of NATO and a former Soviet republic whose Russian border neighborhood has grown increasingly tense in recent years.

The battalion, ferried from Fort Drum, New York by the giant transport planes based at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, is part of a brigade that has sent 2,200 soldiers to Latvia, Germany and Romania for a nine-month training tour.

That deployment is part of Operation Atlantic Resolve, a multinational mission whose American footprint throughout Europe is 5,800 soldiers so far, including a 400-strong 1st Armored Division aviation regiment from Fort Bliss.

Added to the 70,000 U.S. troops permanently assigned to Europe, Atlantic Resolve is NATO's biggest military buildup along Russia's borders since the Cold War, military observers say.

Its a message to Moscow in the wake of a resurgent Russias annexation of the Crimea in 2014, combat clashes within Ukraine and support for other pro-Russian separatists in nations once part of the Soviet Union.

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Estonia, a neighbor of Latvia, accused Russians of kidnapping a senior security official in 2014; Russia said it detained him on the Russian side of the border. Russian President Vladimir Putin has positioned nuclear-capable missiles in Kaliningrad, a piece of Russia that borders Poland and Lithuania, and has sent warships armed with cruise missiles to the Baltic Sea. And Russian warplanes have buzzed NATO aircraft this year.

So the arriving Super Galaxies and the Blackhawks they unloaded were a welcome sight to Latvians unnerved by President Trump's criticism of NATO, particularly its member nations that aren't paying their share to support the alliance. In a pre-inauguration interview with the Times of London and Bild, a German newspaper, Trump stunned some observers by saying NATO was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago.

Trump also hinted during last years campaign that he might not honor the alliances Article V, which treats an attack on one member nation as an attack on all. But Vice President Mike Pence and Defense Secretary James Mattis, at a recent conference in Europe, tried to reassure NATO of Americas commitment while making it clear its nations had to meet their financial obligations.

Soldiers in the 10th Mountain Division wouldnt address Trumps comments but said their deployment should be a clear signal to Russia and its worried neighbors.

Messaging is very important. And that's our goal, to reassure in the Baltic region our NATO and our partner forces and allies of the commitment, said Capt. Lewis Hudson, 28, of Silver Spring, Maryland, a pilot and commander of an assault helicopter company now based in Latvia.

Weve thought about the message, added the battalions commander, Lt. Col. Joshua Ruisanchez, 40, of Ro Piedras, Puerto Rico. And its simple: Its truly our commitment and resolve to the NATO countries.

Part of the reassurance, he said, comes from the size and power of the training force, by sending an entire combat aviation brigade over to Eastern Europe to demonstrate what NATO commanders call interoperability among member nations armed forces.

You've got the British, the French, the Germans, the Canadians, so we'll be operating with them, with much of the 10th Mountain brigade, joined by the Fort Bliss contingent,based in Germany and working with the partner nations, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Hungary and Poland, Ruisanchez said. We'll be a task force the moment we hit ground.

As his soldiers waited in an adjacent room at Fort Drum to board their Riga-bound flights, Hudson spoke of them as helicopter air assault professionals.

We want to be able to help (the Latvians) be able to work alongside us to the same level of proficiency that our forces are, he said.

Its a relationship and a message that doesnt ring hollow when you show up and you're a capable force and then train them to become their own capable forces, said Sgt. Maj. Ronnie Littler, 42, of Tucson, Arizona.

Different kind of mission

Something else was being demonstrated speed of assembly, a byword of the integration of Army and Air Force operations, exemplified by the battalions airlift, Hudson said.

That's what the Air Force really provides, for the Army to be able to go into (Europe) expeditiously, Hudson said. In less than eight hours we can go from the East Coast to anywhere in Europe and start setting up our forces to support any NATO country that needs the support and reassurance, and to help deter any aggression, regardless of where it comes from.

The battalions 1,800 troops were moved to Riga in a combination of military and civilian contract aircraft. The Lackland-based transports moved the heavy stuff three Blackhawks per C-5 flight.

The missions high geopolitical profile is unusual for the Air Force Reserve's 433rd Airlift Wing, which spans the globe in any given month without fanfare, supplying the military from South Korea to Afghanistan.

Raggio, 30, became a command pilot at the unusually young age of 26. Starting Tuesday, his C-5 twice flew the 8.5 hours from Fort Drum to Riga weighing 720,000 pounds at each takeoff and was to stop at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on the way home.

By the time theyre done, the planes 14 crew members will have crossed the Atlantic four times and burned 120,000 gallons of jet fuel over 20,080 miles.

The fuel economy? Six gallons per mile.

Nothing ever goes quite as planned for the Alamo Wing, a unit with a long history of flying the C-5, whose cargo bay is longer than the Wright Brothers first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The Super Galaxy can be as temperamental as it is big.

Given the potential for mechanical issues and revised orders, airmen tell their families never to count on them returning on time. The make frequent grocery runs while en route to buy more food than theyll likely need. And they have rituals and superstitions.

Master Sgt. Eric Mungia, 33, stops at the Little Taco Factory in Kirby before a mission and always orders huevos rancheros, a side of bacon and black coffee.

And the crew wont jinx things by putting on flight suits at the hotel until the alert order has been given to head to the air base unless were in Hawaii and I want to stay longer, said Master Sgt. Will Jalomo, 45, of Lytle, the primary C-5 loadmaster on this trip.

This time the five pilots, five loadmasters, two engineers and two flying crew chiefs fell behind schedule on the first day, thanks to a faulty electrical circuit and the idiosyncrasies of international air travel a 15-minute diplomatic clearance window over southern Norway.

One of the three Black Hawks brought to the plane wasnt on Mungias original plan. As loadmaster, he had to determine its weight and compute its center of gravity, as he does for each item. It ensures a safe flight and saves fuel.

A mistake can be disastrous. A 2013 crash of a Boeing 747-400 cargo aircraft carrying a load of improperly secured Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles killed all seven crew members at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

They blamed it on a load shift, said Maj. Jeremy Hooper, a veteran pilot with the wing who began flying in the ninth grade and took the next load of MRAPs out of Bagram following the incident. After seeing that, I wanted to hold Loadmaster Appreciation Week because if they dont do their job correctly, were all dead.

C-5 history in San Antonio

Motorists on Texas 151 or fans at a San Antonio Missions home game who see a lumbering C-5 taking off or landing at Lackland might know its one of eight M model planes assigned to the 433rd. More powerful and fuel efficient versions of the old C-5A, they arrived last June.

The wing came to the now-closed Brooks AFB in 1955, moved to Kelly AFB five years later and became part of Lackland after Kellys closure.

A lot of people in San Antonio think we do touch-and-goes, and nothing else, said one loadmaster, Tech. Sgt. Bryan Stone, referring to takeoff and landing runs done by the wings 733rd Training Squadron. Stone, 34, is a firefighter and paramedic in civilian life.

The 356th Airlift Squadron logged 220 sorties last year, while the 68th Airlift Squadron flew nearly twice as many, flying anywhere American troops may be posted.

Hooper, 37, flies Boeing 767 jets for Delta Air Lines and has 5,500 hours in civilian and military aircraft. He can tell you how long the C-5 has been flying in San Antonio because his dad, then-Maj. Victor Hooper, flew one of the first A models into Kelly in 1984.

Raggio, a Dallas native who flew in Afghanistan and Iraq, now flies for American Airlines in civilian life, manages every facet of the C-5 mission, from mapping out each legs flight plan and fuel requirements to contingency planning and caring for the crew.

Mungia takes pride in helping carry out national policy, and not just here in Latvia. He is due to fly to Kuwait later in the month, and after that to Afghanistan.

We have some pilots and some loadmasters who say, I remember when I used to fly with your dad, and now some fly with their own kids, who are loadmasters, engineers or pilots, Mungia said. So its a family affair.

sigc@express-news.net

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Aircraft based in San Antonio take part in major NATO operation along Russian border - mySanAntonio.com