45 Guard Troops Return From Mideast Duty

Forty-five Air National Guard reservists marched out the back of a C-130 cargo plane in full combat gear this weekend to the welcome of 400 friends and family members.

“It was a nice big turnout. I’m glad we’re still showing support,” said Nancy Otte, one of the organizers of the welcome.

The members of the 146th Mobile Aerial Port Squadron arrived at Channel Islands Air National Guard Base at Point Mugu about 10:30 p.m. Friday.

Since January, most of the 45 reservists have served as cargo handlers at King Khalid Air Base in northern Saudi Arabia, said Maj. Michael W. Ritz, a base spokesman. A majority of them are Ventura County residents, he said.

Otte, an Oxnard housewife who has a son serving in the Gulf, said she has corresponded with more than 150 troops since the beginning of the crisis. Her son Mel, who serves as a crew chief on an Air Force F-111 fighter jet stationed in Turkey, is due to return Wednesday.

“We still need to give support to the ones over there,” Otte said. “Let’s not forget them, because the war is really not over.”

Ritz said the Mobile Aerial Port Squadron is a unit of the 146th Tactical Air Wing based at the Channel Islands Air National Guard base south of Oxnard.

The base sent one of its own planes to McChord Air Base in Washington state to pick up the reservists and bring them home Friday, Ritz said.