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Refueling and transport squadron returns to Cherry Point
VMGR-252 was in Afghanistan
Caroline Hancock’s sign for dad said it all.
“Look what you’ve missed. Caroline lost 4 teeth. Sloan gained 10 pounds. John-Michael grew 5 inches. Sierra graduated high school. Amanda totaled another car. And Mommy ran a half marathon.”
These were all the things that Col. Ben Hancock missed in the last 12 months while deployed to Afghanistan.
Hancock returned to Cherry Point Saturday with Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron 252. Most of the 50 men and women in VMGR-252 were gone six and a half months, but, as assistant wing commander for the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, Hancock was gone for the full year.
“It’s been almost 12 months, a little more than 11 and a half months. It’s a long time and it’s great to be home,” Col. Hancock said upon arrival Saturday afternoon.
“It’s going to be a little bit of relief to be able to drop my pack and give up those blue jobs that I’ve been doing,” said wife Donnette Hancock. “When he’s gone you’ve got to do them all. I can’t wait to give them back to him, you know, the trash, the bills.”
“We have five kids, two are in college now. One graduated high school He missed the graduation, but he did get to come home in August for two weeks and help move Sierra into N.C. State. Amanda, our other daughter is at Arizona State. We left her there when he was the base commander in Yuma. She totaled another car while he was gone. That’s her second one,” Donnette Hancock said. “It’s hard when you can’t be there and help them out but with the internet the girls send him a lot of papers for him to edit so they keep in contact with him that way.”
“Now the boys, one of them, John-Michael is now taller than he was. When he left, they were the same height and now he’s 6’1 so he grew,” Donnette Hancock said..
“He’s gotten pretty tall. He’s taller than me. Even Sloan’s going to catch up,” the Marine of 29 years said.
“Caroline lost four teeth and the two major ones she lost were the two top front teeth and he missed that while he was gone,” Mrs. Hancock said. “I’ve always ran but never more than six miles and while he was gone I trained and I ran the New Bern half marathon, which was a big accomplishment for me.”
“I missed quite a bit but it’s good to get back,” Col. Hancock said. “Great homecoming. Pretty good crowd.”
Hancock, a former Harrier pilot, said a highlight was “getting to fly and be part of the crew and help out a little bit” but a personal highlight was spending a day and a half in Ireland.
“For me, my family descent on my mother’s side is Irish so it was the first time for me getting to go to Ireland and get to go see the ancestral grounds and pay a quick visit,” he said.
Hancock was complimentary of the KC-130J model.
“This plane has probably the best avionics of any airplane in the Marine Corps. It’s a workhorse both in peacetime and in combat. This thing carries a load. It does great work in terms of hauling people, cargo, aerial deliveries, refueling both the Hornets and Harriers and the MV-22s. It’s the MVP of the Wing I think in a lot of respects,” Hancock said.
Cpl. James Goodson, communication and navigation technician on board, agreed.
“She can do a lot of good work. The plane itself is more efficient. We can go farther, faster, everything about it. It’s a big computer. It does everything for you pretty much.”
The planes were based out of Kandahar , Afghanistan but worked around the entire country.
“Basically we were there to support the MAGTF commander day or night, all weather,” said Major John Butler. “What we did was we had a lot of assault support missions, where we’ve done battlefield illuminations, which is lighting up the battlefield at night for any person on the ground that needs it, for the ground commander. It can also be to cover other aircraft so we did a lot of battlefield illumination at night and we also did aerial delivery where we drop cargo and necessary gear out of the back of the aircraft with parachutes. Our primary mission was aerial refueling.”
VMGR-252 Executive Officer Major Michael Carreiro characterized the 4,800 flight hours the three KC-130J crews spent in and around Afghanistan on the deployment.
“Their mission with the Marine Air Ground Task Force Forward in Afghanistan is to extend the operational reach and flexibility of that force so moving about the battlefield both Marines and equipment, also extending range of platforms like the AV-8s and also helicopters in addition to other missions that they do there such as battlefield illumination and also the newest capability for us, which is Harvest Hawk, which is a close air support platform that delivers ordnance on targets,” Carreiro said.
“The highlights in particular were both the number of hours that were flown and the variety of missions that were flown. The primary mission of our unit is to provide aerial refueling however we do everything else that the C-130 does including aerial delivery. The flight hours that were flown and the variety of missions were unprecedented,” Carreiro said.
“I’m most proud of the fact that all of them are coming back. Their mission there is complex. It’s dynamic. It’s at all hours of the day or night. It’s under hostile fire many times. What they’ve been able to do is bring all the Marines and all the aircraft back safely and that is an incredible accomplishment by any measure,” Carreiro said.
“There dedication was phenomenal,” Butler said. “I could not have asked for anything more from these Marines. We also had several Marines that became fathers during this DET so we able to get to the phone and talk to their wives about what was going on back home. The Marines were dedicated. The Marines never wavered.”
