Troops flying into Southwest Asia are met with calls for volunteers to assist the scarce aerial porters of the 8th Expeditionary Air Mobility Squadron in unloading baggage. The 8th EAMS calls it a simple necessity to handle the flow of some 35,000 troops in and out of SWA each month. The squadron only needs 30 volunteers to offload the baggage, placing it on waiting trucks. However, the other military passengers don’t get away clean; they have to help take the bags off the trucks. Said SSgt. Vickie Sennet, a personnel specialist on her third SWA deployment, “Having done this before, I pretty much knew what to expect.”
A U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber flew from Europe across the Middle East to the Persian Gulf on July 25 in a 32-hour flight, as conflicts continued to roil the area with U.S. troops coming under attack in Iraq and Syria on July 25 and July 26, U.S. officials told…