Airmen return from Alaska support mission

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Mike R. Smith
  • I.G. Brown Training and Education Center
MCGHEE TYSON AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, Tenn. --  The I.G. Brown Training and Education Center's public affairs Airmen retuned here recently after documenting National Guard security forces training in Alaska.

Master Sgt. Jerry Harlan, photographer, and Tech. Sgt. Erik Gallion, broadcaster, were invited by the 134th Security Forces Squadron, Tennessee Air National Guard.

They flew with the security forces to Elmendorf Air Force Base outside Anchorage, on a KC-135 Stratotanker assigned to the squadron's air refueling wing.

"We documented the squadron's training, their convoys, counter-IED and hostage-rescue scenarios," said Harlan. "It was a different side of the security forces mission to see outside of their more visible work on our base."

Harlan said that he never traveled to Alaska before, and he enjoyed the experience, especially the scenery and wildlife.

"We saw moose, bear, elk, buffalo and even a porcupine," he said.

Harlan said that he took more than 700 photographs, which the squadron can use for their training reviews and reports.

Gallion produced a Minuteman Report broadcast - the National Guard Bureau's daily, one-minute, national news report - on the squadron's efforts outdoors as well as its time indoors, on a special, computerized combat simulator.

"I probably took about four hours of video," said Gallion. That included some remote locations outside the city.

"The wilderness is still very primitive, despite a city nearby," said Gallion, who added the work to his portfolio of wilderness coverage in Scotland with civil engineers. It was his first time to Alaska, and he may return, someday, but for vacation.