October marks a decade since the war began in Afghanistan. The assault on the Taliban regime started in October 2001, nearly a month after the 9/11 attacks.
The Air Force has been in the fight since the beginning, with bombing campaigns over Afghan terrorist training camps and Taliban air defenses around Kabul, Jalalabad and Kandahar, and later on command, control and communications targets to weaken Taliban communications.
The Air Force presence in the war effort remains prevalent 10 years later. For example, air refueling aircraft in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility have off-loaded more than 466 million pounds of fuel in 2011 to more than 35,000 receivers, according to statistics from the U.S. Air Forces Central’s Combined Air Operations Center. Tankers also completed more than 7,100 sorties in support of operations so far this year.
Less than two years after Operation Enduring Freedom began, Airmen also began supporting the war on the Iraq front, from the invasion in March 2003 through the pullout of troops at the transition of Operation Iraqi Freedom to Operation New Dawn in 2010.
Since the war began, many other changes have transformed the Air Force culture, such as the rise of cyber warfare to advances in warrior care, improvements in communication and developments in space. These images are representative of the many missions Airmen have supported over the past decade at war.
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