No matter where I travel on Earth, a New Yorker is usually one of the first people I bump into. Antarctica was no exception. The 109th Airlift Wing (109 AW) is a unit of the New York Air National Guard, stationed at Stratton Air National Guard Base, Schenectady, New York. The primary mission of the wing is to provide airlift support for the scientific community in Antarctica (and the Arctic) by transporting cargo and personnel from McMurdo Station to field stations and camps, including the South Pole Station. They operate the Lockheed LC-130, a ski-equipped USAF variant of the C-130 Hercules. The 109th Airlift Wing is the only unit in the world to fly these aircraft, and they currently have 10 of them in service. The aircraft are equipped with retractable skis that allow the aircraft to land on snow and ice as well as on conventional runways. The aircraft have provisions for using jet-assisted-takeoff (JATO) rockets, four on each side of the aircraft, that are installed and used when the LC-130 operates from rough, unprepared snow surfaces, sticky snow or when shorter takeoff runs are needed. On October 15th, 1999, despite the risks inherent to flying in such cold weather, the 109th AW aided in the daring winter-time rescue of Dr. Jerri Nielsen, a doctor with breast cancer symptoms and based at isolated Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica. The 109th maintains an operating location at Christchurch and at Williams Field, on the Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica. Williams Field, pictured here, consists of two hard-packed snow runways located on approximately 25 ft of compacted snow, lying on top of 262 ft of ice, floating over 1,800 ft of water. As someone who went to the University at Buffalo, NY, seeing these guardsmen and women from Western NY wearing their Buffalo Bills gear in the McMurdo galley was a small reminder of home and very comforting during my deployment. Go Bills! (at McMurdo Station, Antarctica) https://www.instagram.com/p/CL6_FEFnLED/?igshid=1xa2hbfhjzrkj