LAJES FIELD, Azores — Maj. Ken Sersun said he learned more about the Air Force mission during his first deployment as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom than at any point in his 16-year career.

As chief of staff for the Air Support Operations Center at Camp Virginia, Kuwait, Sersun was one of nearly 150 airmen among 10,000 of the Army's V Corps’ finest in the desert.

The center’s role during OIF was to call in close-air support for ground forces. According to Sersun, that usually meant using pre-positioned “packages” of Air Force aircraft flying overhead, ready to drop bombs and kill the bad guys when needed.

These roaming hunters -- A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, F-15E Strike Eagles, F-16 Fighting Falcons, B-2 Spirit bombers and more -- helped give the Air Force the edge in the war, Sersun said.

"We went to great lengths to win the war decisively and quickly, but we also went to great lengths not to maximize unnecessary death and destruction," he said. “We were not conquerors; we were liberators … and demonstrating this to the Iraqi people was crucial to winning their hearts and minds.”

Sersun said while the flying hunters roamed the sky, the center’s command staff would watch live Predator feeds of the aircrews hunting Scuds and taking down enemy targets.

However, Sersun's portion of the war was not without its tragedy. Camp Virginia was near the site where an Army soldier allegedly tossed grenades into a command tent March 22. Sersun was asked to write the posthumous award for Maj. Greg Stone, who was in the tent and died in a hospital in Kuwait four days later.

Stone had been serving as an air liaison officer with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division at Camp Pennsylvania in northern Kuwait when the attack on his quarters took place.

"Between that and diving into Scud bunkers, it brought the realization of death to the forefront," Sersun said.

Meanwhile, the deployment also helped the major better see "the big picture" of what the Air Force does.

"Doing what we did out there helped me prioritize what is truly important,” he said, adding that he is taking with him “a renewed focus on the Air Force mission -- to fly, fight and win. Everything else supports that mission."