Description

4th Airlift Squadron C-17 Model

Fly with the “The Spirit of McChord” of the 4th Airlift Squadron in this hand-crafted C-17 model. Each piece is carefully carved from wood and hand painted to provide a piece you’ll love.

• Length- 18 inches
• Made from Mahogany
• US Veteran Owned Business

In 2000, the squadron retired its C-141 Starlifters for the new C-17 Globemaster III airlifter. In a response to the terrorist attacks against America on September 11, 2001, President George Bush initiated war against terrorism named Operation Infinite Justice, later renamed Operation Enduring Freedom. The squadron supported these efforts by airlifting troops and supplies destined for Afghanistan. It also flew humanitarian airdrops that hundreds of thousands of the rations for starving Afghans. Flights in support of Coalition efforts in Afghanistan continue to the present-day. In January 2003 additional personnel and aircraft would deploy to locations all around the world in support airlift operations. By the end of January all aircraft supporting this effort would fly their missions from Charleston AFB, SC, the only East coast C-17 Base. Similar C-17 stage operations had been operating into Afghanistan from a base in Germany. After repeated noncompliance to UN demands Operation Iraqi Freedom begins. “On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein’s ability to wage war,” President Bush stated in an address to the nation. During the time of war squadron personnel would be in the thick of the fight. Under the cover of darkness at a forward operation location at Aviano, Italy on March 26, 2003, squadron aircraft flew into combat in to the hostile sky’s of Northern Iraq. The nine-hour mission, covering distance roughly the equivalent of Seattle to St. Louis, delivered members of the Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigades “Sky Soldiers” into to an area north of Baghdad. This mission, the largest combat airdrop since the invasion of Panama in December 1989 in Operation Just Cause, was the first combat insertion of paratroopers using C-17’s. Operations in support of Operation Iraqui Freedom continued until the United States withdraw from Iraq at the end of 2011.