of the USS Cole from the Persian Gulf after the ship was attacked by terrorists while at port in Yemen. Throughout 2001, the Wolfpack participated in three CAXs and supported two Weapons and Tactics Instructor Courses (WTI). In May 2001 the Wolfpack also supported President Bush during his first visit to California as President. Later that year, the squadron shifted its focus to aircrew training for the upcoming 11th MEU (SOC) detachment as well as another UDP to Okinawa in June 2002. The UDP proved to be a diverse deployment for the squadron. Flying across the Western Pacific rim, the heavy lift community was well represented by the Wolfpack in operations such as BALAKITAN in the Philippines and COBRA GOLD in Thailand. Upon its return to MCAS Miramar in July 2003, the Wolfpack had completed a thirteen-month deployment, the longest in squadron history. In August 2003, the Wolfpack supported HMX-1 and President Bush during his visit to Los Alamitos, California and later in the year provided six aircraft and the requisite maintainers to support WTI 1-04. Tragedy struck the San Diego community in October 2003, as 400,000 acres of land were burned by wildfires. Rising to help the community, the Wolfpack launched six aircraft, each carrying 1320 gallon water buckets, to provide much needed assistance to beleaguered fire fighters as they quelled the expansive blaze. December was a month of preparation as the squadron set its eyes on training. Spending time in Indian Springs, Nevada and Yuma, Arizona the Wolfpack sharpened their skills as they readied to deploy to Iraq. The Global War on Terror In January 2004, the squadron embarked sixteen aircraft aboard the USS Boxer for transport to the Persian Gulf. The Wolfpack carried eleven 13,000 pound tugs and offloaded HMM-261 from the USS Bataan before flying all sixteen aircraft 350 miles north to Al Asad Airbase in Central Iraq. While in Iraq, the squadron became the first USMC frag-capable squadron in country for Combined Joint Task Force 7 (CJTF-7). While deployed, the squadron flew 3,774.9 hours, and transported over 8,530 passengers and 6.4 million pounds of cargo in support Operation IRAQI FREEDOM II-1 (OIF). In addition, the squadron was recognized by the Secretary of the Navy for surpassing the 50,000 hour class “A” mishap-free milestone during the deployment. On 21 September 2005 the Wolfpack departed MCAS Miramar for another deployment in support of OIF 04-06.2. The squadron