Squadron home from deployment

Addison Oelrich, almost 2, cried out, "I see Daddy! I see Daddy!" before the stairs were wheeled up to the plane. When 1st Sgt. Jeff Faretra stepped down, his wife, Katherine, grabbed hold and hugged him.

"I just want him home," she said.

The 15th Airlift Squadron "Global Eagles" landed at Charleston Air Force base Saturday after four months in the Mideast and the Horn of Africa. More than 130 Air Force personnel lugging packs, pillows and sleeping bags fell into the arms of their families and friends waving tiny American flags. They put their arms around infants wearing mini versions of their uniforms.

The scene has become routine at the base; the emotions nothing less than raw. The base is the workhorse of the Mideast wars airlift. At any one time, 700 or more personnel are deployed in regular four-month rotations.

This squadron saw it all. The expeditionary squadron they were attached to airdropped more equipment in combat zones in those four months than in all of 2006-07 combined, said Lt. Col. John Lamontagne, 15th Squadron commander.

"Putting cargo out there, bullets out there, supplies, food, water out there in mountainous terrains in Afghanistan, anything you can think of, we dropped it," said Capt. Roosevelt Loveless, a C-17 cargo plane pilot.

The personal sacrifices they made were at times excruciating. Capts. Jennifer and Robert Moore, C-17 pilots married to each other, left their then-2-month-old daughter, Gabriella, in the care of Jennifer's parents. They cried as they cradled her.

"It's a blessing," Robert Moore said, "just to be able to hold her."

The expeditionary squadron flew more than 3,000 sorties, dropped more than 103 million pounds of cargo and carried 79,000 military personnel through the Mideast.

On the airstrip Saturday, Lamontagne and Col. John "Red" Millander, 437th Airlift Wing commander, ceremonially pinned technical sergeant stripes on loadmaster Joshua Watson, essentially a battlefield promotion earned by his performance in the war zone. He was a huge part of the air drop success, said 15th Squadron superintendent Master Sgt. Jeff Wilson.

They gave him a traditional punch to the pinned shoulders. The applause was loud. Because he had earned it, they had earned it.

Out on the tarmac, Katherine Faretra said the obvious: It never gets easier. The deployment was her husband's third.

"This is the last one, right?" asked Andrea Faretra, his 13-year-old daughter.

There was no answer.

Reach Bo Petersen at 843-937-5744.