RAINIER, Wash. - Airmen from the Washington Air National Guard's 116th Air Support Operations Squadron participated in Operation Husky Airborne Aug. 8 to practice jumping out of a Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter, evacuating casualties, and collaborating with partners in the Army National Guard.
The primary goal of the operation was to "get familiarity with Army air operations with a Chinook," said Capt. Nate Carlson of the 116th. The 116th worked with the Army Guard's 66th Theater Aviation Command and the 19th Special Forces Group, Special Operations Detachment Pacific to conduct Operation Husky Airborne. "We have good integration with them," said Carlson.
"We are practicing an insertion method of how we get to work," said Master Sgt. Tavis Delaney, a Tactical Air Control Party operator in the 116th. "It's a method for us to get to work, one of many ways to get to a job site."
The 116th members practiced low- and high-altitude jumps. "There are situations where we need to jump into a place undetected, so we try to stay off the radar by jumping as low as we do," said Sgt. 1st Class Jose Gonzalez, a jumpmaster from the Army 4th Battalion, 1st Special Forces Group located at Joint Base Lewis-McChord. "The military freefall is at high altitude for entries in places where they don't want to get detected either. So we have really high jumps and really low jumps. We can jump as low as 800 feet in training. The lowest we're going to go is 1,250 feet."
Delaney said that parachutists in the 116th aim to practice air jumps every other month to maintain their job currency.
The 116th depends on Army aviators, including Army National Guard partners, to conduct these practices. "We don't have our own chutes or jumpmasters," said Delaney. "We wouldn't be able to put this on if the Special Operations Detachment Pacific wasn't helping us out. The big thing is the interoperability in working with the Army National Guard," said Delaney.
The Army Guard works across military services to provide helicopter transport. "The uniform doesn't matter to me," said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Nathaniel Thompson, the Chinook pilot and a member of the 66th TAC. "People come from far and wide to be supported."
"I have an element of eight men who load onto the helo and are dropped off," said Tech. Sgt. Louis Awua, Red Flight Operations NCO for the 116th and an air assault team leader. "Most of the training is centered on helicopter landing operations and medivac 9-line." Medivac 9-line is "the template used to evacuate casualties," said Awua. "Familiarity with the tactics, techniques, and procedures of different types of helos helps us support Army or Marine Corps ground commanders," said Awua.
In theater during wartime, TACPs would jump with communications and tactical equipment along with a rifle and MREs, said Staff Sgt. Brant Shaw as he took his seat in the Chinook.
Operation Husky Airborne was part of Team 116 Organization Day and Barbeque, attended by service members' families and employers, who were able to see the squadron in action and learn more about its mission.
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