Maj. Gen. Timothy Lowenberg, the Adjutant General and commander of the Washington National Guard, gave the Airmen of the 116th Air Support Operations Squadron some encouraging words before about 21 of them left on a four-month deployment to Afghanistan in March.

"The mission this task force is about to undertake is indescribably difficult work that very few are capable of doing," Lowenberg told the gathered crowd at the ceremony. "Less than seven-tenths of one percent of all Americans can meet the standards required to service America's military forces and an infinitesimal fraction of that percent is capable of what these men are about to do - again."

The general couldn't have been more right, as several members of the 116th received national recognition for an intense seven-hour battle on May 25 in which insurgents ambushed U.S. and Afghan soldiers.

The 116th Airmen played a key role in directing airstrikes that beat back enemy fighters.

On Aug. 4, the Washington Air National Guard welcomed home from Afghanistan the 116th ASOS. The citizen-airmen of the 116th are Tactical Air Control Party members; often considered the furthest extension of Air Force influence on the Army's battlefield. TACP Airmen deploy into combat and serve as close air support experts, advising ground commanders on the use of Air Force assets in combat.

"We are extremely proud of the 116th and we are happy to have them home," Lowenberg said in a release. "Their standard of excellence and contributions to the war fight are well known in the military community."

On that May 25 mission, JTACs from the 116th ASOS directed aerial attacks on enemy positions while U.S. and Afghan soldiers fought to drive insurgents from Do Ab, a tiny village in Nuristan province, Afghanistan.

"If they hadn't been there dropping bombs, I don't know that we would have gotten out of that valley," U.S. Army Sgt. Edward Kane, an infantry team leader from Portland, Ore., told an Army writer. "The enemy was getting closer, and their shots were getting more accurate."

Tech. Sgt. Tavis Delaney and Senior Airman Michael McCaffrey were the JTACs attached to one Army unit.

The six-hour battle intensified, and at one point required the JTACs to dodge bullets and rocket propelled grenades while running between their cover to find out where the greatest threats were coming from and then call in airstrikes on the advancing fighters.

"It got to the point where the enemy had maneuvered within 200 meters of the team," said Tech. Sgt. Jaime Medina, another 116th ASOS Airman. "Tavis made the gutsy call to recommend a danger-close mission to the ground commander."

Dropping massive bombs that close to U.S. forces, just outside the bomb's maximum effective range, left no room for error by the pilots, and was a very difficult decision to make.

"It had to be done, however," Delaney said. "We were in direct danger of being overrun."

The day after the platoon returned to their forward operating base, several of the Army Soldiers and leadership individually approached Delaney and McCaffrey's team leader, Maj. Raed Gyekis.

"Your two JTACs saved our lives," they told him.

Gyekis recalled how one of them had tears in his eyes when he recounted the story, and how his wife and children had Delaney and McCaffrey to thank for his safe return.

Information from a U.S. Air Forces Central story contributed to this article.