The sun had just set as the aircraft preflight checks ended. The tower reported: “cleared for take off.”

The four engines of the vintage 1962 C-130E Hercules roared as the transport plane rumbled down the runway on its way to Iraq to deliver and pick up passengers and cargo.

Aboard, loadmaster Tech. Sgt. Tony Pemberton was thinking about his passengers.

“The one thing that keeps me focused, going in or coming out -- especially taking off -- is you know these guys have been in there (in Iraq) for a year or a year and a half. And after surviving that, you don’t want to get shot down coming out.

“So I focus on getting these guys home to their families,” he said.

The C-130 crew is from the 41st Airlift Squadron at Pope AFB, N.C. They deployed here to fly with the 737th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, which is part of the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing. The wing serves as the airlift hub for Iraq.

That focus was evident in the cargo bay of the plane as it approached the airfield. Sergeant Pemberton and fellow loadmasters Senior Airman Greg Nardone ensured the cargo bay was ready for landing. Then they went to work scanning the ground for hostile threats.

“What keeps you alert is scanning for bullets -- that definitely keeps you alert,” Airman Nardone said. “I’ve done it a hundred times. But every time we do it -- every time we go to take off and every time we land -- it scares you. No matter how many times you do it. So that’s what keeps me awake and alert.”

Within minutes of landing safely, the Hercules’ cargo bay was full of Marines and Soldiers heading home for rest and relaxation.

At the drop-off spot, the troops file off. The ones getting on, many who have served their year in Iraq are not looking so fresh.

“But they’re just as excited to go home,” Airman Nardone said. “You’ll be totally blacked out in the back. But as soon as you take off, when you actually leave that runway, you will hear them scream and clap.”

The C-130 has been hauling troops and cargo in and out of combat zones since the Air Force took delivery of the C-130A model in 1956. While the aircraft is old and may not have some of the modern avionics of newer planes, it still brings Airmen home every day, navigator Maj. Sam Price said.

“There’s bailing wire and tape holding this [plane] together,” he joked. “But everyday we get home and that thing (the plane) still goes.”

C-130s here have been hauling troops in and out of Iraq since October 2003. And they have been supporting missions in Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa. During that time, the expeditionary wing has hauled more than 950,000 passengers and 77,000 tons of cargo.

That’s equivalent to hauling the entire population of Montana and 4,108 fully loaded F-16s -- with enough room left for the population of Bismarck, N.D.

This C-130’s crew say their recipe for success includes its six-person crew and its great maintainers.

“It’s not a one-person aircraft; you can’t do it by yourself. So there’s six of us to make sure everything gets done,” Sergeant Pemberton said.

That attitude isn’t lost in the up-front crew compartment.

“That’s the benefit of having six people on the plane. This guy says, hey how’s your defense systems? That’s not his job, but that’s a crew member trying to help somebody else,” Major Price said. “If he hadn’t done it, maybe I’d have forgotten that day. That’s just taking care of each other -- that’s the benefit of a crew airplane.”

The major added the final ingredient to the recipe for success.

“[Maintainers] do some magic with that old piece of iron because that plane brings us home everyday,” he said.

On the trip home, amid all the checks and constant monitoring of gauges and flight instruments in the crew compartment, squadron commander Lt. Col. Pollyanna Montgomery broke in on the internal radio system.

“Do you know why a chicken coup only has two doors?” she asked. “Because if it had four it would be a sedan.”

The quip was well timed. The remainder of the flight went smooth and unremarkable.

Every day and night, these trusty planes continue landing in the combat zone. It’s a landing which first pilot 1st Lt. Dennis Slowinski said can be hectic.

“It’s like coordinated chaos,” the lieutenant said. “It’s pretty cool when the plane touches down and we’re on the ground and you think about what we just did.”

He said, “I’m trying to talk to the ground and ATC (air traffic control). The engineer is trying to get a check list done and the navigator is punching 50 different things into the computer and trying to coordinate us into the airfield that we can’t see.

[The airfield] is blacked out,” Lieutenant Slowinski said. “We’re blacked out. And we’re trying to get to a point on the ground -- and we don’t know where it’s at.”

It’s not a glamorous job. The C-130 crews know that. News media hounds aren’t standing on the runway waiting for the first glimpse of a C-130 returning from a combat mission over Iraq.

Never-the-less, these Airmen and their “Hercs” continue a mission that started more than 40 years ago. They put boots on the ground, sometimes in harms way. But always where they’re needed.