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Malmstrom RED HORSE Airmen return home

  • Published
  • By 341st Missile Wing Public Affairs Office staff
MALMSTROM AIR FORCE BASE --  More than 340 Malmstrom and Montana Air National Guard Airmen landed at the Great Falls International Airport at approximately 6 p.m. April 6 after a six-month deployment to the Middle East.

During the deployment, RED HORSE Airmen worked at more than 11 sites in five countries. Accomplishments included, but were not limited to the building of a new cargo/maintenance hangar, drilling wells, constructing new airstrips and delivering supplies during convoys.

"Teams were established across Afghanistan as well as a large portion of the [Central Command] theater from Manas, Kyrgyzstan down to Thumrait [Air Base] doing everything from airfield pavement to well drilling," said Col. Greg Rosenmerkel, 819th RHS commander.

Overall, the 1st Expeditionary RED HORSE Group completed more than 70 different projects while deployed.

"All of my troops performed magnificently," Colonel Rosenmerkel said. "We had a great team. For this particular deployment we had both active-duty as well as our associate Guard members. The teams were fully integrated across the whole theater and did a great job. I was blessed with a very talented leadership team and all of them did a fabulous job."

The hard-working Airmen stepped off their plane and anxiously boarded buses driven by Airmen from the 341st Logistic Readiness Squadron who brought them to Malmstrom.

The seven buses of Airmen were led onto base by Defenders operating the flashing lights and sirens of their vehicles and shortly parked outside a hangar of hundreds of family members.

The Airmen were greeted by their family members with signs, flowers and hugs after several months of being separated.

"I've had so much anxiety inside," said Candice Hanenburg, wife of Tech. Sgt. Martin Hanenburg. "I have a 2 year old and a 4 year old and every single day they've asked me 'when is daddy going to be home,' it almost doesn't feel real."

"I had a picture of [my husband] on our laptop and every morning our daughter woke up and went straight to the laptop and told her daddy good morning," said Jenna Thompson, an 819th RHS family member.

RED HORSE, or Rapid Engineer Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron, Engineer, provide the Air Force with a highly mobile civil engineering response force to support contingency and special operations worldwide. This was the sixth deployment Airmen from the 819th RHS have completed since Sept. 11, 2001.