NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – The 437th Airlift Wing took flight Wednesday morning, beginning an over 40-hour mission to ensure their airmen and mission support professionals are prepared for any situation.
Joint Base Charleston is home to one of the largest fleets of C-17s in the world, and eight of them left for the Indo-Pacific. They are known to transport U.S. troops and cargo all over the world on a moment’s notice and support national security initiatives. The 437th Airlift Wing will carry out Palmetto Reach with the 628th Air Base Wing, an annual combat readiness exercise.
“This is the first one of this magnitude for us; we have done similar exercises, but never to this scale or to these locations,” Lt. Col. Daniel Holder, a mission force generation element commander, said. “So, for our folks, this is the first time we will ever operate in any of these environments, and this is what we need our folks prepared to do.”…