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From Page 14 down, they were confronted by 12 vehicles with heavily armed Taliban who escorted them to the allied side of the airfield. They made their way through taxiways littered with garbage, rocks, personal effects, stray animals, and abandoned cars and eventually lost radio contact with all controllers due to jamming.

Despite these hurdles, the crew offloaded the high-value cargo in an unprecedented 40 minutes, enabling the special operations team to conduct their mission of seeking and recovering American personnel for immediate evacuation.

“We found out through our contact with the unit that we brought in there that they were able to get over 800 people out from the countryside who otherwise would not have made it to Kabul,” said copilot Gaugenti. “So, if we did not complete our mission, that’s 800 people who would be stuck there still.”

However, Reach 824’s job wasn’t done yet. Over the two weeks of Operation Allies Refuge, the crew returned to Kabul to complete two additional missions to help evacuate 348 people, the youngest a 17-day-old girl.

In their final mission, the crew transported 13 service members killed in action in a bombing at the airport from Kabul to Kuwait.

“That was at the end of a long two weeks trying to figure everything out,” Guagenti said. “We were all exhausted. We thought we were going home. ... Not one of us hesitated, even as exhausted as we were.”

Reach 824’s steadfast commitment to the mission is just another example of their shared devotion to duty. This and the crew’s ability to solve problems enabled their success and are qualities instilled in every Airman.

“The American military, the U.S. Air Force … we train our people to be thinking individuals, right?” Townsend said. “You have to train your people and trust that they’re going to get the mission done.”

Professional competence and the ability to produce creative solutions is something passed down through generations of Airmen at Stewart ANG Base.

“There were so many guys before me, so many instructors who had taught me on missions how to make common-sense decisions,” McChesney said. “So, it was the guys who came before me who really molded me to be able to make these decisions.”

While McChesney emphasized the timing was just right for his crew to be assigned this mission, any of the 105th Airlift Wing’s Airmen would have jumped at the chance to help however they could.

“There’s a squadron full of pilots back at Stewart that would have done the same exact thing I did,” McChesney said. “I know there are guys that wanted to be there with me so bad that they would have done anything. There were guys actively trying to get to Afghanistan because all they wanted to do was help out.”

Service members make two choices, Hokanson said.

“The first choice is to serve,” he said. “The second choice is how we live. How we respond to a crisis. Do we fight? Do we run? Do we freeze? What do we choose to do when lives are on the line?”

It isn’t until a pivotal moment, a crisis, that we know for sure how we will respond, he said, and crew members of Reach 824 know how they respond to extreme tests.

“You met crisis with conviction,” Hokanson told them.