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MXG Lieutenant engages enemy during fire fight

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman J. Paul Croxon
  • 319th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
GRAND FORKS AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. --  As 107mm rockets exploded against the Hescoe barriers, 1st Lt. Jacob Sullivan found himself manning the Humvee-mounted M204B machine gun from an over watch position. An hour later, close air support aircraft dropped 500-pound bombs on the enemy, ending the engagement with no friendly casualties and 12 anti-government militia fighters dead.

That firefight was just one of many new experiences Lieutenant Sullivan was to have during his deployment.

Lieutenant Sullivan deployed to Afghanistan as part of the 755th Expeditionary Support Squadron, which was tasked to deploy with the Army as brigade support teams. He was the officer in charge of 17 Airmen from 14 different bases.

"My team integrated with Army personnel on Forward Operating Base Apache and assumed control of their tactical operations center, (TOC) brigade maintenance operations and communications," said Lieutenant Sullivan. "We also assisted with personnel matters, construction, intelligence, and medical care and training."

Lieutenant Sullivan was in charge of the TOC, or what the Army refers to as a "battle captain." The TOC was comprised of various communications equipment with the mission of tracking all brigade units outside the wire, calling in close air support, medical evacuations, quick reaction forces and to relay information to other FOBs.

"During my time as battle captain, the FOB Apache TOC handled over 100 incidents of troops in contact [with enemy combatants], improvised explosive devises and other serious incidents," the lieutenant said.

Prior to deploying, he had six weeks of training at Camp Shelby, Miss., where he learned personal and larger weapons training, convoy training, IED recognition, combat life saver training, navigation, and communications systems training. However, once he had boots on the ground, the Grand Forks AFB maintenance officer had to learn the Army "battle captain" position in two and a half weeks.

"The learning curve was extremely steep," he said. "A few of the Air Force personnel, myself included, ended up working in positions that didn't correspond with their AFSC [Air Force specialty codes], but we were there to support the brigade, so we molded into what was required and learned what was needed to ensure it was done correctly."

The night of that attack that Lieutenant Sullivan manned the M204 he was in a meeting with Afghan National Army soldiers and village elders when they were alerted about the upcoming attack. It was during moments like that when Lieutenant Sullivan applied the most valuable lesson learned during his time in Afghanistan.

"I learned that one needs to be flexible and willing to take on tasks that may be outside one's lane in order to accomplish the mission," reflected the lieutenant.

Sometimes, those tasks include leaving the maintenance skills behind and becoming a combat Airman, manning a machine gun against enemies.