"Angry Warriors" return home from deployment

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Stefanie Torres
  • 388th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah --  About 170 members of the 388th Fighter Wing's 729th Air Control Squadron arrived on the flightline 11 a.m. Sept. 23 from a four-month Air and Space Expeditionary Force deployment to Balad Air Base, Iraq.
The 729th "Angry Warriors" de-boarded the aircraft and walked between two rows of Utah's Patriot Guard Riders holding American flags to a cheering crowd of family and friends waiting outside Hangar 37.
729th members expressed their enthusiasm to be home.
"I am so excited to be back at Hill. I missed my friends here and can't wait to hear all the stuff that's been going on," said Senior Airman Jessica Moreno, an electronic protection technician.
"I loved being deployed because we are out there making a difference, and I know what we did made an impact," she said.
This was Senior Airman Jeffrey Herrod's first deployment and he was also in a hurry after arriving home.
"I just can't wait to see my family," said the intelligence technician. "Each hour on the ride back just made me more anxious to get home. It wasn't fast enough for me."
The "Angry Warriors" provided ground-based air control to coalition aircraft conducting flight operations over Iraq and relayed command-and-control information between coalition aircraft and the Combined Air and Space Operations Center.
The 729th ACS is one of only four deployable air control squadrons in the U.S., and its Airmen last deployed to the Central Command area of operations in October 2006.