Members of USAF’s 818th Contingency Response Group/24th Air Expeditionary Group are processing hundreds of thousands of pounds of relief supplies coming into Pakistan every day. The groups’ members, which have been drawn primarily from Air Mobility Command’s 621st Contingency Response Wing and 305th Air Mobility Wing, both at McGuire AFB, N.J., comprise aerial porters, ramp controllers, aircraft maintainers, ground equipment mechanics, and special tactics and medical personnel. The groups also have finance and contracting airmen, working to ensure the team has the goods and services it needs to keep working.
A three-month continuing resolution that ended in December inflicted less pain on the Department of the Air Force than it had expected, as procurement and construction continue in the new year. The federal government operated under a stopgap spending measure that stretched from the beginning of the fiscal year on…