CLAY NATIONAL GUARD CENTER, Marietta, Nov. 13, 2009 – Twelve Georgia Air National Guard Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs) leave
this month to join Macon’s 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team in Afghanistan.
The Airmen, who are assigned to Brunswick’s 165th Air Support Operations Squadron (ASOS), have seen action in Iraq and Afghanistan throughout the eight-year Global War on Terror.
“Although our controllers have experienced multiple rotations to the region,” said Capt Roger Brooks, commander of the deploying teams of controllers, “this will be the largest group of JTACs to deploy to Afghanistan.”
The ASOS teams received orders earlier in the month to deploy, and are now conducting preliminary training at Townsend Bombing Range in South Georgia. Following two days off with their families for Thanksgiving, the Air Guardsmen will deploy at the end of the month.
When the South Georgia air controllers put “boots on the ground,” it’ll be just about the time the first snows cover the Afghan mountains. Unit members will be issued cold weather gear to protect them from weather that fluctuates from moderate to extremely cold temperatures within hours. The group expects to return home in mid-March, said Brooks.
When they reach Afghan soil, Four three-man teams will be assigned to each battalion of the 48th, said Brooks. Once they’re settled in, the JTAC controllers will begin providing forward air support for those units.
“We’re usually positioned in the lead elements of the advancing infantry, ready to direct punishing air strikes on insurgent strongholds clustered in the hills, valleys and caves throughout the country,” the captain explained.
The teams will have several combat strike aircraft to select from for close air support missions including A-10 Thunderbolts, F-16 Falcons, AC-130 gunships, Navy EA-6 Prowlers, Marine Corps Harrier jump jets, and Navy and Marine Corps F-18 Hornets, he continued. Also available to them will be an assortment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) already controlling Afghan airspace.
