Personnel from the 23rd Fighter Group (FG) and the 3rd Aerial Port Squadron at Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina, along with crew members from the 436th Airlift Wing at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, prepare to load an MJ-1 bomb loader onto a C-5B on the Green Ramp in the early morning hours. The loader along with numerous other pieces of support equipment and 60 23rd Fighter Group personnel, deployed to the Kosovo area of operations to maintain and support four A-10A Warthog Thunderbolt II ground attack aircraft of the 23rd FG that departed Pope AFB the previous morning

The A-10 Thunderbolt has excellent maneuverability at low airspeeds and altitude and is a highly accurate and survivable weapons-delivery platform. Called the “Warthog” for its aggressive look and often painted with teeth on the nose cone, the A-10 Thunderbolt II is the U.S. Air Force’s primary low-altitude close air support aircraft best known for its GAU-8 Avenger 30mm Gatling gun designed to fire armor-piercing depleted uranium and high explosive incendiary rounds. In the 1970s the threat of Soviet armored forces and all-weather attack operations had become more serious. Six companies submitted aircraft proposals, with Northrop and Fairchild-Republic selected to build prototypes: the YA-9A and YA-10A, respectively. General Electric and Philco-Ford were selected to build and test GAU-8 cannon prototypes. First A-10 was delivered to the U.S. Air Force on 30 March 1976. By 1984, 715 airplanes had been built.