Word: squadrons
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Certainly the decisions they face are life and death, as TIME observed when it was recently granted exclusive access to operations of the Air Force's 15th Reconnaissance Squadron, which commands 25 Predators from Nellis. It was 10:30 p.m. in Nevada, 9:30 a.m. in Iraq, and after two hours of watching insurgents fire a pickup-truck-mounted .50-cal. machine gun at U.S. troops in western Iraq, Rogers and the sensor operator with whom he works were given the command to shoot the truck. Both developed a case of what Rogers calls the "trembles"--the nervousness of wanting...
...Predators commanded by the 15th Reconnaissance Squadron are launched and landed by troops at the front, but while they are in the air, up to 24 hours straight every day, they are controlled by Air Force crews sitting in six grounded cockpits at Nellis. Each cockpit consists of two large armchairs set in front of banks of computer screens with keyboards, control joysticks and live video images. Video is relayed from a camera mounted on the bottom of the Predator not only to Nellis but also to troops on the ground, commanders in the region and the Pentagon. The crew...
...back home. The operational tempo puts intense pressure on the small group of men and women who deliver death from a distance. The 180-person Nellis unit runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with no holidays. The unit has logged more flight hours than any other squadron in the Air Force yet is only 65% staffed. Crew members are so tightly scheduled that when on duty, they have to ask permission to go to the bathroom and cannot leave their chairs unless there is someone to replace them. The troops call the Predator compound Shawshank because...
...DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS Lieut. Colonel Matt Bannon oversees the entire Predator operation of the 15th Reconnaissance Squadron...
...more aid, and sooner than Washington contemplates. From Korea, Bush flies to Beijing, where he will meet with the leaders of a nation which, however much its economic future may be linked to that of the U.S., is certainly not an ally. In the last two months a veritable squadron of top U.S. officials-including Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, Trade Representative Rob Portman and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld-have visited Beijing, to praise China's economic development out of one side of their mouth, while complaining of Chinese behavior on everything from piracy to defense spending from...