Soldiers packed their gear and loaded into transport trucks heading for airfields. Paratroopers rigged up with parachutes, carried their weapons in cases, and marched in columns to C-17 transports waiting on the tarmac. On a separate airfield, ground crews loaded a B-52H Stratofortress with two-thousand-pound Mk 84 bombs — each nearly thirteen feet long — filling the internal bay and wing pylons to the aircraft’s 70,000-pound ordnance capacity.

The B-52 crew checked oxygen systems, loaded their gear, and took off for a long-range strike mission into Iran, with the electronic warfare officer and navigator managing radar, ECM, and weapons from the lower compartment. Marines boarded a CH-53E Super Stallion on an aircraft carrier and flew to a forward position near the Iranian border. UH-60 Black Hawks shuttled additional troops from allied bases. The C-17 dropped its paratroopers over the drop zone, then landed at an allied airfield to offload vehicles and supplies.