152nd Airlift Wing

21/10/2026

Please join us in congratulating Master Sgt. Bryanna Richard on her well-deserved promotion!
This milestone represents years of dedication, hard work and commitment to serving our nation and the Nevada Air National Guard.
As she steps into her new role as a senior noncommissioned officer, we look forward to seeing her continued leadership and positive impact on the High Roller family.
Congratulations, Master Sgt. Richard! We're proud to have you on our team! 🇺🇸✈️

21/10/2026

☕🇺🇸 Join us for the 5th Annual Coffee with Vets!

This Veterans Day, we’re coming together to honor those who served before us! Join our High Roller community for a morning of appreciation, conversation, coffee and pastries.

📅 November 11
🕙 10 a.m.
📍 MorningStar Senior Living
2360 Wingfield Hills Road

Come share a cup of coffee and help us show our gratitude to those who have served! 🇺🇸

09/10/2026

The 152nd Airlift Wing Chiefs Council teamed up with NCOs and SNCOs to support Healing Arenas in Gardnerville, Nevada, bringing Airmen together to give back to an organization dedicated to helping people and horses.

Founded in 2014, Healing Arenas promotes emotional wellness through interaction with horses while providing care and new opportunities for retired racehorses. Its programs, including Stable Vets, support veterans, families, first responders and individuals navigating trauma.

Serving side by side, Airmen strengthened relationships, demonstrated leadership through action and put Service Before Self into practice, showing their commitment to service extends beyond the uniform.

Pictured:

Julie Baker, Founder & Director
TSgt Branden Hinen
MSgt Jay Pascua
CMSgt Marcus Eisemann
CMSgt Jessica Stewart
MSgt Sarah Tucker
TSgt Alyssa Sampson
MSgt Anthony Sacci
CMSgt Thomas Hansen

(U.S. Air Force photo and story by Chief Master Sgt. Jessica Stewart)

08/10/2026

Chiefs in the Community

The 152nd Airlift Wing Chiefs Council recently joined forces with Catholic Charities of Northern Nevada to organize and prepare donations within its warehouse. By sorting, moving, and arranging donated goods, our Chiefs helped make the warehouse more efficient and ensured essential items could reach local individuals and families in need.

For more than 85 years, Catholic Charities of Northern Nevada has provided vital support to individuals and families throughout the region through food, clothing, shelter, case management, and other essential services.

This community outreach was a great opportunity to serve alongside an organization that makes a lasting difference in the lives of thousands of Nevadans. The 152nd AW Chiefs Council is proud to lead by example and continue strengthening the connection between the Nevada Air National Guard and the community we serve.

CMSgt Colburn, David
CMSgt Sandoval, Robert
CMSgt Rosales, Cruz
CMSgt Stewart, Jessica
CMSgt Green, Angie
CMSgt Beck, Jeanie
CMSgt Barber, Christopher

(U.S. Air Force story and photo by Chief Master Sgt, Jessica Stewart)

06/10/2026

🇺🇸 WELCOME HOME, HIGH ROLLERS! 🇺🇸

With the arrival of our final aircraft earlier today, the 152nd Airlift Wing has officially welcomed home the last of our High Rollers following a six-month deployment to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility in support of Operation Epic Fury.

After months of answering the nation’s call, we are incredibly grateful to have our Airmen and aircraft safely back in Nevada. This deployment demonstrated what the High Rollers have always stood for — readiness, professionalism and an unwavering commitment to the mission and one another.

For now, there is comfort in knowing our team is home, families are reunited and our Airmen have an opportunity to rest, reconnect and reset.

But readiness never stops.

When our state or nation calls again, the High Rollers will be ready.

Welcome home, High Rollers. It’s good to have the whole team back. 🇺🇸

06/10/2026

Another group of High Rollers touched down back home today after returning from a six-month deployment in support of Operation Epic Fury. 🇺🇸

Each arrival marks another step toward bringing our Airmen home and reuniting them with their families, friends and teammates.

We’re proud of everything they accomplished while deployed and even more grateful to welcome another portion of the 152nd Airlift Wing back to Nevada.

Welcome home, High Rollers! 🎲✈️

04/10/2026

Six months after a one-week-notice federal callup, Nevada Air National Guardsmen and two C-130 aircrafts returned home Sunday from deployment to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility in support of Operation Epic Fury.

Sunday concluded the largest short-notice deployment of the Nevada Air National Guard since the Persian Gulf War in 1991. It is the third-largest such deployment in the organization’s history. The other occurred during the Pueblo Crisis in 1968, when 600 Nevada Air Guardsmen in Reno were called on one-week notice in response to North Korea’s seizure of a U.S. naval vessel. Aircrew, maintenance and support personnel for four aircraft participated in this summer’s deployment, with more than 200 total Airmen mobilized.

The 152nd Airlift Wing, Nevada Air National Guard — with its C-130 H3 tactical airlift mission — was listed as “contingency response available” this spring before Operation Epic Fury began.

“It’s a six-month available window to be ready for any overseas contingency,” said Lt. Col. David McNally, 192nd Airlift Squadron commander and pilot who deployed this summer. “The High Rollers were on the list to go and answered the call. We are always ready when our nation calls and this deployment showed that.”

The 152nd High Rollers provided tactical airlift for theater movement during Epic Fury, including mu*****ns and personnel.

“I don’t think our unit has faced a bigger threat,” McNally said. “They were in weapon engagement zones. They did a hell of a job and operated for six months through war. They did it without any losses and were one hundred percent mission effective the entire time. Any tasking we were called to do — we filled. It all comes back to our training here in Nevada. That played a significant part in our success.”

Additional specifics on theater operations will not be released by the Nevada National Guard given operational security considerations for military members currently deployed in CENTCOM.

The 152nd Airlift Wing has operated at the Nevada Air National Guard Base at the south runway of Reno-Tahoe International Airport since 1954. Before that, its aviators worked out of Stead Air Force Base north of Reno from 1948-1954. The wing has operated C-130 Hercules aircraft since 1996.

The Nevada National Guard has services available for military members and their families, including chaplains, behavioral health specialists and the Military and Family Readiness Program.

Welcome home, High Rollers! 🇺🇸

29/09/2026

🎃🃏 Monster Mash Magic is coming Oct. 17! 🃏🎃

Service members and their families are invited to come out and enjoy a fun Halloween-themed Magic: The Gathering Commander Tournament with Coffee N’ Comics.

Bring your best monster themed Commander deck, meet fellow players and enjoy some friendly competition in a spooky setting.

29/09/2026

28/09/2026

From Loadmaster to Pilot: One Airman’s Final Flight with C-130 93-2041

RENO, Nev. — For Lt. Col. Bradley Emmett, a C-130 Hercules parked on the Nevada Air National Guard flight line represents far more than another aircraft in the inventory.

More than 16 years ago, Emmett stood in the back of the same aircraft over Afghanistan as a staff sergeant and loadmaster. During an airdrop mission, enemy fire struck the aircraft, sending a round through its fuselage and leaving damage that remains visible inside the aircraft today.

Now a C-130 pilot, Emmett is preparing to climb into its cockpit for one final flight as tail number 93-2041 leaves operational service and begins a new chapter as a maintenance training aircraft at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas.

“It’ll be cool,” Emmett said. “It’s kind of some closure with that airplane.”

In 2010, Emmett was a loadmaster assigned to the Illinois Air National Guard’s 182nd Airlift Wing and 169th Airlift Squadron while deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.

At the time, his crew was conducting a low-cost, low-altitude, or LCLA, airdrop mission to resupply troops operating in western Afghanistan.

The tactic allowed C-130 crews to deliver relatively small bundles at low altitude. According to Emmett, crews would remain at higher altitude for as long as possible before descending rapidly toward the drop zone, minimizing the amount of time the aircraft was exposed to small-arms fire.

As the C-130 approached the drop zone, Emmett stood near the cargo bundle preparing for the release.

The copilot spotted two individuals on a motorcycle moving near the aircraft’s flight path. Shortly afterward, Emmett heard a rapid series of noises inside the aircraft.

“I’m standing back by the LCLA, getting ready to cut the gate,” he said. “Then all of a sudden you hear, ‘pop, pop, pop, pop, pop!!’ in the airplane.”

His immediate reaction was to duck behind the cargo bundle.

At first, the crew did not know exactly what had happened. The aircraft continued its mission, completed the airdrop and returned toward Bagram Airfield.

During the flight home, however, electrical problems began appearing. The copilot experienced instrument problems, and several interphone positions became stuck on hot microphone. Those abnormalities raised the crew’s suspicions that the aircraft might have been hit.

Confirmation came after landing. As the crew exited the aircraft, maintainers gathered around damage to the right side of the fuselage.

According to Emmett, the projectile entered the right side of the aircraft forward of an emergency escape hatch. It passed through the aircraft skin and structural components before striking emergency oxygen equipment, penetrating an aluminum bulkhead and passing through wiring before losing energy near the navigator’s position.

Some evidence of the damage remains aboard the aircraft today. The crew was later awarded Combat Action Medals for the engagement, Emmett said.

From the cargo compartment to the cockpit. Although he was serving as an enlisted loadmaster at the time, becoming a pilot had always been Emmett’s goal.

He continued working toward his education while deploying and serving as a loadmaster. After completing pilot training, he returned to the 169th Airlift Squadron as a C-130 pilot in 2014.

The transition moved him from the cargo compartment to the flight deck, but he said his years as an enlisted aircrew member continue to influence the way he operates today.

“It helps a lot,” Emmett said. “You’re used to having a crew. You know how the checklists work. You know how general operations work, and you know when something doesn’t sound right just from having experience.”

He estimates he accumulated approximately 1,500 flying hours as a loadmaster and more than 2,500 hours as a pilot.

That experience also shaped the way he views the Airmen working behind the cockpit. When necessary, Emmett said he still returns to the cargo compartment to help loadmasters configure seats or prepare the aircraft.

“That’s the cool part about being on the crew,” he said. “It’s just about getting the job done.”

For years after the Afghanistan mission, aircraft 93-2041 remained part of Emmett’s personal history.

The connection even extended beyond his military career. When he and his wife took engagement photographs, they chose the C-130 as part of the setting. A large photograph featuring the aircraft’s tail still hangs in their home.

Years later, circumstances brought the aircraft back into his life.

When Emmett learned his current unit, The 152nd Airlift Wing, would receive a C-130 from his former organization, he hoped it would be 93-2041.

It was.

“It was just weird that it worked out that way,” he said. “That’s the one that ended up coming here.”

When the opportunity arose to retrieve the aircraft, Emmett volunteered.

Now, as the aircraft approaches the end of its operational flying career, he volunteered again — this time to help deliver it on its final flight.

“I want to be the last one to land it,” he said.

One final mission

The aircraft’s military service will not end when its engines shut down at Sheppard Air Force Base.

Instead, the C-130 will take on a new role training future aircraft maintainers. Students will use the aircraft to learn fundamental maintenance skills, removing and installing components and gaining hands-on experience before progressing to specialized aircraft training.

For an aircraft that once carried Airmen into combat and delivered supplies to troops on the ground, its final mission will be preparing another generation of Airmen to maintain the force.

For Emmett, the flight will close a circle that began when he was an enlisted loadmaster standing in the cargo compartment over Afghanistan.

Since then, he has progressed from staff sergeant to lieutenant colonel, from loadmaster to pilot and from surviving a combat mission aboard 93-2041 to preparing to occupy its pilot seat one final time.

More than a decade after their first memorable flight together, Airman and aircraft will make one last journey.

This time, Lt. Col. Bradley Emmett will be at the controls.

(U.S. Air Force photos and story by Tech. Sgt. Albert Valladares)