[MilCom] POTUS at Ft Benning

[Mike Riffle]

Here's a recap of the visit...

This was the first visit to Ft Benning by President Bush (the last President
to visit was Clinton back in 1995). The visit coincided with the
announcement last night that additional troops would be sent to Iraq. The
3rd Brigade 3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized) at Ft Benning was already
scheduled to deploy to Iraq this spring. It now appears that deployment may
be pushed up by a month. In fact, tonight the first of many civilian
transports are arriving to take the 3rd to the National Training Center at
Ft Irwin for their pre-deployment training.

While on post the President had lunch with the troops, gave a speech, then
witnessed some military maneuvers. Part of the maneuvers included RAVEN 41
(UH-60) which carried a Ranger squad aloft for a parachute jump (I had been
hearing these guys practicing jumps since Monday, now I know why). RAVEN was
in comms with their ground unit on 34.65 and with RAVEN 42 on 280.5. From
what I was seeing on TV there were some other UH-60s providing aerial
surveillance but I did not hear any comms from them due to their low
altitude.

REACH 715T (C-17) was the support aircraft. He arrived yesterday afternoon
and departed tonight. The press aircraft was JETBLUE 4407/4406.

There was no combat air patrol supporting the visit.

Approx 40 minutes prior to departure "93" established comms with "9000"
(AF1) on 136.725. I did not hear any comms on that frequency during his
approach.

300.4 was initialized 5 minutes after departure with tone only. During the
approach voice was heard up until 10 minutes prior to landing.

ATC for the event was 134.5>126.55>119.05 for the inbound leg and 119.05>
125.5>134.5>126.425 for the outbound. It was interesting to note that ATC
did not directly answer a general aviation aircraft when they asked him
what the TFR was for. ATC simply told them "don't worry, I'll keep you well
clear of the area".

Finally, I had the opportunity to see AF1 as it flew over my home on the
approach to Lawson AAF. Thanks to a traffic advisory by ATC I know he was at
9000 feet. In fact, as I was shooting this series of photos he was cleared
to descend to 3000 feet: http://www.showlinephoto.com/misc/AF1.html

Mike Riffle
Cataula, GA