According to recent data, of some 33,000 airmen deployed to combatant commands, 4,000 are from the Air National Guard and 2,000 from Air Force Reserve Command—roughly 25 percent. At home, for Operation Noble Eagle, ANG and AFRC airmen have flown 30,000 of the 43,000 fighter, tanker, and AWACS sorties. Air Guard and Air Reserve members make up 88 percent of the service’s aeromedical evacuation crewmembers.
Clearing jungle and laying asphalt in tropical heat may not sound like fun to most people, but it’s a way of life for Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineers (RED HORSE) Airmen, who have spent the past year or so restoring World War II-era airfields on the Pacific…