Base Realignment and Closure Commission again proposed closure of what was now Homestead ARS and either relocating or inactivating the 482 FW. This BRAC Commission subsequently withdrew Homestead ARS and the 482 FW from further consideration in June 1995. From 1997, the 482 FW periodically deployed personnel and aircraft to Incirlik Air Base, Turkey to help enforce Operation Northern Watch, the no-fly zone over Northern Iraq established following Operation Desert Storm. That same year, the Air Force Reserve ceased to be a USAF Field Operating Agency and transitioned in status to that of a USAF major command (MAJCOM) designated as the Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC). The 482 FW became an AFRC command by default and the acronym "AFRES" previously painted on the empennage of the wing's aircraft was replaced by the acronym "AFRC" in the same fuselage location. 21st Century operations Following the Al Qaeda attacks on the U.S. homeland on 11 September 2001, the ‘Global War On Terror’ put the 482 FW on the front line of Operation Enduring Freedom and the war in Afghanistan. Along with flying a continuous stateside Combat Air Patrol (CAP) mission from Homestead ARS, elements of the 482nd Fighter Wing deployed in October 2001 to Al Jaber Air Base, Kuwait as part of a regularly scheduled Aerospace Expeditionary Force (AEF) rotation in support of Operation Southern Watch to enforce the no-fly zone over southern Iraq. Once established at Al Jaber, pilots of the 482 FW's 93rd Fighter Squadron (93 FS), the "Makos," began flying additional combat missions as part of Operation Enduring Freedom over Afghanistan. Throughout the 90-day deployment, Mako pilots with 482 FW maintenance personnel in support, flew 9 to 15 hours a day as part of a larger Air Reserve Component "rainbow wing" at Al Jaber. In early March 2003, as they prepared for yet another rotation to Operation Southern Watch at Al Jaber AB, members of the wing's 93 FS advance party found themselves on the front lines for the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Two pilots and two F-16C aircraft from the unit contributed to the "shock and awe" campaign over Baghdad, as well as other Iraqi targets, during the first and continued waves of the coalition forces campaign. Back at home, the resumption of the Operation Noble Eagle Air Defense alert mission over the United States, augmenting Air National Guard F-15 and F-16 units, added to the