let's keep the 103rd

air control squadron in our thoughts and prayers (as we do ALL of our deployed troops EVERYWHERE)

The 103rd Air Control
Squadron deployed
Bob Wilson

(WTNH) - It is an emotional night for Connecticut members of the 103rd Air Control Squadron. For the fifth time since the terror attacks of September 11th, they are heading to Iraq knowing there is a war to fight and an administration back home that's about to change hands.

Many of these airmen have done this before. The send off ceremony has become routine. The 103rd Air Control Squadron has been mobilized five times in the last seven years. Many of the airmen haven't missed a single deployment.

"We have been deployed five times, I have been deployed five times," Lieutenant Col. Bill Neri, of the 103rd Air Control Squadron, said. "And there are a lot of us that have done that. Last year we were in Cutter, and we have a lot of people here that have been on these trips.".......

a connecticut unit, keeping the peace

a rather nice story out of afghanistan. hurry home 102nd! we miss you and WE THANK YOU for your service.
(and thanks to the students of ms troy's and other classes at mathewson elementary school for the clothing drive!!! wicked cool)

Trained To Kill, Instead They Give For State Troops Returning From Afghanistan, Helping Children Made All The Difference

By JESSE HAMILTON, Courant Staff Writer
When U.S. soldiers settle into a strange land, such as the rocky borderlands of Afghanistan's eastern side, you can bet their best friendships will be with the smallest of the locals: the children.In Iraq and Afghanistan, the outposts and bases become suns in the orbits of area children, hoping for handouts and excitement and maybe an education about the armored strangers living in their neighborhoods

Some troops from Connecticut who have been in Iraq have learned a special wariness of children, who have sometimes been deadly, grenade-carrying pawns of the insurgency. But for a few Connecticut soldiers now in the Jalalabad area of Afghanistan, the bond with Afghan children is what they will take away from their year at war..........

............"You're trained to be aggressive, to fight, to kill. The hardest thing coming here is they're trying to win over the hearts and minds of the people of Afghanistan, so you have to take your aggression down a couple of notches," Troy said by phone from Afghanistan. His group has only been in a single long firefight, he said, and none of the soldiers was hurt."We came over here expecting to fight a war when what we're actually doing is trying to keep the peace.".........