2 Patriots fail to fly in Fort Bliss farewell

What this headline could have said was " Hell of a job ! well done !" I have watched these Guy's load the PAC-1's on trucks for a few months now , The company I work for is building the extension of the Bunkers the PAC-1 is held in ,along with other Munitions !It is DAMN hot out there ! They have been busting their ass's out in the desert ,Training to shoot these things off! With several successful launches!

McGREGOR RANGE, N.M. -- Air defense soldiers in training were disappointed Friday when two Patriot launch attempts were aborted, but soldiers said the live-fire exercise still had educational value.

It was the last live-fire exercise scheduled for the U.S. Army Air Defense Artillery Center and School at Fort Bliss before it moves to Fort Sill, Okla., over the next few years, and it was meant to use up the last Patriot missiles in the inventory.

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The school is moving to Fort Sill as part of the Base Realignment and Closure, the Pentagon's plan to realign the military.

The missiles used in the exercise Friday were some of the oldest in the nation's armory -- PAC-1 missiles.

"They're older missiles, or it could have been a system fault or something with the radar," said Staff Sgt. Tyrone Rawls, a Patriot operator and maintainer who earned the standing of Patriot "master gunner." "It (the exercise) still has value. From the privates' standpoint, they got to participate in an actual live fire, even though the missiles didn't fire. They got the experience."

Although a missile intercept would have provided flash, soldiers also participated in weeks of planning and had to set up
equipment as part of the field training exercise leading up to the launch, said Capt. Matthew Carruthers, commander of Alpha Battery, 3rd Battalion, 6th Air Defense Artillery Brigade. The simulation also included the successful launch of two Patriot missiles at another site about 50 miles away that represented an enemy Scud missile attack.

Those missiles were destroyed in midflight soon after the defending Patriot emplacement failed to fire.

Students also will conduct an "after-action review"
Students with the Ft. Bliss air defense artillery school observed a Patriot live-fire exercise Friday at McGregor Range in New Mexico. This was the final live-fire exercise before the school moves to Ft. Sill, Okla.
to determine what went wrong, Rawls said.

As the soldiers formed up to board the buses that would take them back to the post, information circulated that the first aborted launch was caused by a "battery problem."

Details on the causes won't be available until all the data are collected and analyzed, officials said.

Many soldiers are attracted to air defense because of the high-tech nature of the job.

"It was something different," said Pvt. Roderick Steele, with the 3-6 ADA. "The technology of it is totally interesting."

Pfc. Casie Brickner, also with the 3-6 ADA, was one of the soldiers who loaded Patriot missiles into their canisters for the exercise. She said she hoped to deploy to Afghanistan "because it seems like that's kind of the new 'hot' area."

Air Defense Artillery is "a technical field, and I didn't want to be stuck indoors," Brickner said. "There's not many combat jobs that are open to women."

Retired Lt. Col. Allen King, who served with the 1st Armored Division, said he always appreciated the air defenders.

"They do their job really well," said King, who took his son and daughter to observe. "I never worried about something coming overhead."