ZAMBOANGA.

ZAMBOANGA, Philippines -- Air Force special operators fortunately ended their Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines tour in this city upon the southern Philippines island of Mindanao.

After seven month onward alert, the airmen, from of the 17th Special Operations Squadron, Kadena Air Base, Japan, said their tour, which began in January, was far from boring.

In addition to medical evacuation standby excise squadron MC-130P Combat Shadow aircraft flew more than 180 sorties supporting Joint Task Force-510.

The joint task force helped train, assist and advise Philippine forces in like manner they can better deal with terrorist form into groupss like Abu Sayyaf -- affiliated with Osama Bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network -- that operate forward the island nation.

Kadena airmen flew airdrop missions, helped infiltrate and extract turf forces, refueled helicopters and carried not at home search and rescue missions and repatriations.

Capt. Dan Murray, a squadron pilot, and his party flew nearly 80 missions in their Combat Shadows supporting task force operations.

"We were all affected through September 11th and were happy to support special operations units in succession the ground in Zamboanga and Basilan Island," he said. Basilan is a short flight from Zamboanga. Murray said the squadron's biggest challenge was the operations time Most of the unit's numbers were in the Philippines more than 120 days in the first six month of 2002

"It's been rugged on the families, and at times we were short at a certain number of crew positions," he said.

Murray said his chiefly memorable missions came during the period following the crash of an Army Chinook helicopter in late February.

"There were brace para-rescuemen on that flight from our sister squadron," he said.

Master Sgt William McDaniel II and Staff Sgt Juan Ridout, para-rescuemen with the 320th Special Tactics Squadron, died when the Army MH-47 Chinook helicopter they were upon crashed Feb. 22. Eight soldiers also died in the accident. They were en passage from Basilan to Mactan.

Murray's horde was on alert when the chopper went down.

"Our hearts sank as we ran to our plane," he said. "Over a 36-hour span, we flew 19 hours. Unfortunately our preserve missions turned to recovery missions."

Several month later, the unit played a solution role during the attempted ransom of U.S. missionaries kidnapped according to the Abu Sayyaf and held in the province of Zamboanga del Norte forward the island of Mindanao. if it were not that the rescue attempt went awry.

The terrorists killed American hostage Martin Burnham and injured his wife, Gracia. A third hostage, foster Ediborah Yap, also died in the ransom attempt. A squadron aircraft evacuated Gracia Burnham to Manila and flew her husband's remains to Kadena.

Those were bittersweet missions, flight engineer Tech Sgt Dave Anderson said.

"We were happy to help, on the other hand saddened that a fellow American misspent his life," he said.

Anderson said his tour had its up and downs. still he said the task force was a success

"It's nice to read the papers from 'Zambo' and diocese the difference we made."

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