Family members held signs welcoming the returning Vermont Air National Guard members and rushed to embrace their loved ones.
The pilots were the vanguard of close to 300 Guardsmen who will be returning this week from a two-month deployment in the Middle East. Members of the 158th Fighter Wing, stationed in Vermont, volunteered to participate in Operation Inherent Resolve, flying missions in Iraq and Syria, according to Col. Patrick Guinee.
The fighter pilots flew missions targeting militants with the Islamic State group, Guinee said, providing support for the U.S.-backed coalition forces working to recapture the Iraqi city of Mosul and the Syrian city of Raqqa — an Islamic State stronghold.
“It’s hard to describe the pride we have in not only the members themselves deploying but the families back here who took care of them, but to put it in some terms, they flew over a year’s worth of hours in just over two months,” Guinee said.
The pilots and ground support crews worked shifts that lasted 12 or more hours seven days a week during the time they were deployed. No Vermont Guardsmen suffered any injuries during the deployment, Guinee said.
Shaner said he volunteered for the mission in part because he wasn’t sure if there would be another opportunity to fly the F-16 in combat, and he and other members of the Guard wanted to show what they were capable of.
The jets, which are on average 30 years old, will be retired soon, as newer model F-35s are expected to arrive at the Vermont Air National Guard base in the fall of 2019. Flying the F-16 in combat was a serious departure from training exercises in Vermont, Shaner said.
“There’s definitely a pretty brutal war going on in Iraq and Syria that doesn’t necessarily get a lot of coverage, especially during the presidential inauguration season,” he said. “There’s a lot of bullets flying around in Iraq and Syria, and we did see that.”
The F-16s are equipped with a variety of precision guided air-to-ground rockets and bombs as well as a 20 mm cannon. Shaner said for every mission the cannon is fully loaded.
“Sometimes you use it, sometimes you don’t,” he said.
Cray commands both the Vermont Air National Guard and the Vermont Army National Guard. Asked for his thoughts on reports that President Donald Trump’s administration had considered mobilizing the National Guard to enforce federal immigration laws, Cray referred to a National Guard Bureau statement saying the reports were based on a draft memo and “there wasn’t any real consideration to the National Guard.”
Pressed for his opinion on the idea of the National Guard being deployed to enforce federal immigration laws, Cray said: “The National Guard can be used in a lot of different ways under the direction of the governor, or if federalized, the president. The National Guard is incredibly proud of what they do for this state and what they do for this nation.”
Gov. Phil Scott said at a news conference last week that he would “resist” using the Vermont National Guard for roundups of unauthorized immigrants, if Trump ordered it.
