U.S. Air Force Europe-based aircraft and personnel deployed to Estonia to conduct training that focuses on maintaining joint readiness while building interoperability capabilities. This deployment is part of the European Reassurance Initiative, supports Operation Atlantic Resolve and continues to demonstrate our commitment to our allies and European security and stability.
Combat controllers sprint through the small, rustic village donned in plate carriers and radios, ducking behind buildings for cover, calling in coordinates and relaying information to the ground force commander.
The citizens were transformed into enemy combatants, the village homes into targets for circling A-10 Thunderbolt IIs and the cobblestone streets into a battlezone of withering gunfire.
This was not actual combat, rather it was...
A quiet, rural highway in northern Estonia transformed into a bustling military airfield as combat controllers guided A-10C Thunderbolt IIs onto the 50-foot-wide freeway during a flying training deployment, Aug. 10.