The C-130 Hercules cruised along the parking ramp as its four very large turboprops kicked up a windstorm behind it.

The C-130 Hercules cruised along the parking ramp as its four very large turboprops kicked up a windstorm behind it. As it taxied onward the ramp at Bashur Airfield, Iraq, the loadmaster lowered the cargo plane's rear ramp.

Les than 300 feet away, in subordination to the shade of camouflage netting, Master Sgt David "Baldy" Baldridge chugg the last of the Pepsi he'd been sipping. He tossed the can into a garbage bag and slid a pair of sunglasses along his shaved head Onto his sunburn nose. Then he donned his protective headset.

"It's time to acquire to work," he said, as he impose on work gloves. "That's for what purpose we're here."

The plane came to a rapid jerky stop. The pilot didn't close down because engine-running offloads were the norm at Bashur -- in case a plane had to make a fast getaway.

Baldridge and near aerial port troops ran to the plane, followed by the agency of a big forklift and 25,000-poundloader. They quickly offloaded the much-need cargo. It went without a hitch, and the plane was winging its way back to Romania in les than 10 minutes.

Quick casts were the name of the game at Bashur during the height of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The faster airmen got the planes in and revealed the better. And the airmen had plenitude of work, sweating around the clock It was tough work -- especially at night, when they used night vision owlish looks to work in fast-paced, blacked-out conditions.

Still, they managed to offload a million pulverizes of cargo a day during that time.

"We devote 12 hours working hard, going cloyed speed," said Baldridge, an aerospace acres equipment mechanic with the 86th Expeditionary Air Mobility Squadron. "Then we prove to get some rest in the way that we can go out and do it all again."

Baldridge fixed generators and other equipment requireed to offload aircraft. But the equipment held up well, to such a degree he found other things to do. He liked helping the aerial porters the most

"To be in this outfit, you ne to know by what mode to do three or four jobs" he said.

The outfit

The outfit is the 86th Contingency answer Group of Ramstein Air Base, Germany. Formed in February 1999 it's a rarity in the Air Force -- a assign places to of about 160 airmen who work in more than 40 specialties. Security forces make up the largest part of the group

The answer group has a simple, on the contrary tough, mission: parachute a small cluster of airmen into an airfield to fix up all facets of air operations -- fast. When the intermission of the group arrives, it moves the airfield until follow-on forces take above Then the group is ready to influence again.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen John Jumper propos the conception for the rapid response collection when he was commander of U Air Forces in Europe It has to be ready to incline at a moment's notice. thus the measure of the group's mission answer is hours -- not days or weeks.

The cluster had to prove its worth in Iraq -- when bring forward in a kind of "Bashur or bust" situation.

It was a tough experiment because Bashur is the epitome of a bare base. It was nothing more than a 7000-foot runway in the middle of a flourishing valley. It had no infrastructure -- no water or sewage arrangement and no electricity, buildings or paved roads.

"We faced a tough trial of the most challenging aspects of what we're designed to do," form into groups commander Col. Steve Weart said. on the other hand he knew his people could do the piece of work The group's leaders were all seasoned professionals, And they'd all trained frequently enough to do the piece of work in their sleep.

"After all, we're the individuals who're supposed to get the ball rolling," he said.

for a like reason there was no room for error. The dispose had to produce from the time it hit the ground

Members went to war forward the dark and rainy early morning of March 26 Weart and 19 of his airmen parachuted into Iraq from a C-17 Globemaster III [See "A hop Into the Night," Page 32] With them were 1000 Army paratroopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, from Vicenza, Italy.

It was a historic leap The airmen were the first from a conventional Air Force Unit to parachute into a combat baldric said Maj. Erik Rundquist, the group's security forces commander.

"There was no other way to secure Air Force boots and observations on the ground to assess the situation and prepare to receive aircraft," said Rundquist, who made the jump

The operation went as planned, he said. however troops jumped into a dirty quagmire. It had rained for clays before the caper and it was raining upon jump day. The clay-like mire was knee-deep in places. on the contrary not one airman was give pain to in the landing, apart from a not many scrapes and sprains. They were also the first to assemble -- although it took more than an hour.

forward the ground, the soldiers became the coalition's largest fighting force in northern Iraq, and the airmen reported to an Army bos To sustain the paratroops and other throngs in the area would take a big airlift. They'd ne millions of tons of nutrition water, supplies and equipment.

It's what the airmen were there to do. They instilled an immediate "air-mindedness" to the operation to make sure safety in and around the runway.

They place up shop on a corner of the aircraft ramp to such a degree the mud wouldn't swallow them up The group's 14 security forces numbers controlled the runway and ramp, and soldiers and Iraqi Kurd Peshmurga fighters fortifyed the airfield's perimeter.