ARLINGTON, Va., - The Army National Guard's Operational Support
Airlift Agency recently accepted a new mission to deploy aircrews and
aircraft to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
The mission, part of the Multi-national Force and Observers mission of
enforcing the 1979 Camp David Peace Accords, primarily entails flying
civilian observers, who verify the continued observance of the 30-year-old
peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.
"It is a direct result of the 1979 peace accords," said Staff. Sgt. Joe
Garland, noncommissioned officer in charge of current operations at OSAA,
which is based at Fort Belvoir, Va. "They have over 20 some odd countries
stationed in two places in Egypt that do weekly verifications of the peace
treaty to make sure one side is not encroaching on the other."
OSAA will take over the mission this month from the French military, which is
withdrawing from the MFO mission after taking part since the late 1980s, said
Garland.
Currently, OSAA is set to take part in the mission through 2011, but OSAA
officials believe that commitment will be extended.
"Right now we've only been directed to support it for one year," said Capt.
Chris Logsdon, future operations officer at OSAA. "But, everyone's gut
feeling is that it will continue past that, so we are planning for continued
operations."
The current group set to deploy to Egypt is made up entirely of volunteers,
said Logsdon, adding that if tasked with staying longer than a year it will
turn into a rotational mission, much like other deployments to Iraq,
Afghanistan or other overseas missions.
He added that OSAA has the ideal equipment and skill set that is needed to
support the mission.
"When the French let MFO know they were no longer going to support the
mission, there was an evaluation done on several different types of
aircraft," said Logsdon. "The C-23 Sherpa, which the Army National Guard is
the only (U.S.) military agency that has that airframe, ranked highly in
their evaluation criteria."
What makes the Sherpa, referred to by many as a boxcar with wings, ideal for
the mission is its versatility and the line of sight it offers to those
onboard the aircraft, said Logsdon.
"The aircraft can go from passenger transport to cargo transport and it can
even be used to transport patients in a casualty evacuation situation," he
said. "And the visibility range to see outside the aircraft is ideal. That is
a huge part of what MFO does."
Currently, OSAA is sending a squad-sized element to support the flying
mission, but they have also been asked to support other aspects of the
overall MFO mission as well.
"We've also been asked to support the MFO plans and operations cell," said
Logsdon. "This was a second tasking that was identified that they needed and
they asked us if we could step up and assist and we're doing everything we
can to find volunteers to cover down on that request."
Planning for the MFO mission has been in the works for the past few months.
"It kind of trickled down to us here at OSAA," said Garland, of the
possibility of sending folks to the Sinai. "We weren't actually given the
mission until about three or four weeks ago, but we leaned way far forward
preparing for everything just in case we were."
And that, said Garland, speaks to the level of readiness of the unit.
"We're able to do planning, coordinating and really put things in play and
just get it all together until somebody says go," he said."Then we've got all
the pieces on the chessboard and in play and we can go very quickly."