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LONGBOWS, LONG WAR
The Utah National Guard's long wait for a squadron of the Army's most lethal attack aircraft, the Apache Longbow, ended this week as the first of 24 new helicopters arrived at the Guard's Army Aviation Support Facility in West Jordan.
Guard leaders had been informed early this decade that the aircraft would be part of Utah's military inventory, but wartime obligations and political disputes stalled the delivery of the $18 million helicopters. Utah Guard members from the 1-211th Aviation Battalion, which last deployed to war in Afghanistan in 2004 and 2005, will take ownership of the remainder of the Longbows in coming days, in anticipation of another deployment in the next three years.
The advanced attack aircraft are in great demand in Afghanistan, where rugged terrain makes the nimble gunships ideal for air assault operations; and in Iraq, where the U.S. is withdrawing troops but maintaining many air assets in support of the Iraqi Army.
It's a safe bet, then, that regardless of the planned drawdown of troops in Iraq and no matter what the Obama Administration does in Afghanistan, service members attached to aviation units will continue to feel the same pressures they've been feeling for years.
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