Marine pilots, warplanes return to Beaufort

[thedrifter]

May 16, 2003

Marine pilots, warplanes return to Beaufort

Associated Press


BEAUFORT MARINE CORPS AIR STATION, S.C. ? Ten Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornets swooped overhead at noon May 12 as the ?Thunderbolts? returned from three months of flying wartime missions over Iraq.
Maj. Matt Tolliver was barely out of his jet before his three-year-old son Jacob started peppering him with questions about the aircraft. Tolliver answered his son with a smile that seemed to say, ?It?s good to be home.?

For family members, loved ones and the pilots themselves, it was a warm homecoming for a squadron that has spent more time deployed than at home over the past year-and-a-half.

?It?s just great to be here,? Lt. Col. Tom Clark, the squadron?s commanding officer, said May 12. ?It?s great to see everybody.?

Surrounded by his wife, son and daughter, Clark said he had nothing planned but to spend time with his family. ?I?m just going to spend some time away from the heat and away from the sand,? he said.

?It?s really exciting to come home,? said Tolliver, greeted as well by wife Lorraine and children, Alex, 7, and Mateo, 1.?It?s so nice to be here.?

The unit returned home three months to the day after departing for the conflict with Iraq.

?We?re proud of them, they are our combat veterans,? said a spokesman at the base, Capt. Don Caetano.

Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 251 ? dubbed the ?Thunderbolts? ? were in Kuwait for the duration of the conflict. They flew reconnaissance, combat support and air-to-ground attack missions over Iraq, Caetano said.

Two of the unit?s jets did not return May 12. They were delayed due to mechanical problems but should return within the next few days, the spokesman said.

About 150 Marines and Navy sailors who deployed in support of the squadron are scheduled to return Tuesday afternoon, Caetano said. They will fly in aboard a commercial air transport.

That group is composed of mechanics, logistics and administrative specialists who kept the unit going while in Kuwait, Caetano said.

During the conflict in Afghanistan, the same unit flew their warplanes off the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, an experience Caetano said proved ?instrumental? in their successful return home this time.

?They?d done it before. They are a very experienced group,? he said.

Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 533 returned last week from its three-month deployment to Kuwait.

A third unit that deployed for the Iraqi conflict, Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 115, is scheduled to return on May 22 and May 23. Squadron 115 deployed with the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman in December 2002.




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Copyright 2003 The Associated Press.


Sempers,

Roger