Aerial gunnery 1st Assault Helicopter Battalion, 140th Aviation Regiment National Guard

The National Guard’s 1st Assault Helicopter Battalion, 140th Aviation Regiment unit out of Los Alamedos, Calif. was here March 16-18 conducting annual certifications for aerial gunnery. Six UH-60 Black Hawks and two companies of Soldiers fired thousands of rounds of M240 ammunition on the MPRC range.
2nd Lt. Vincent Sherrill, Bravo Company platoon leader, said the unit has come every year for a decade or more. “We have a strong professional relationship with Fort Hunter Liggett,” he said. “Range Control has been awesome in helping us achieve our mission. They understand our needs as an aviation unit and they facilitate that.”
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Jacinto Gonzalez, the battalion’s standardization instructor pilot said most of the crews have been in the same unit for eight or nine years. “We integrate supporting ground units with suppressive fire,” he said of their wartime mission. “Most of the crews have been together through two deployments.”