HANGAR TALK
EDITOR’S NOTE: I was sent the link to this article and sought permission to reprint
it for our readers. At the bottom you will find my response to” A Rescue Force
for the World”.
Steve
Document created:
Air
& Space Power Journal -
Fall 2007
A Rescue Force for the World
Adapting Airpower to the Realities of the Long War
|
Editorial Abstract: Despite an unquestionable abundance of talent and capabilities, the Air Force rescue community has long been plagued by organizational instability, an unclear purpose, and a significant amount of both internal and external professional frustration. The authors advocate redefining the community’s core thinking and missions to promote what it does best—fostering stability, economic growth, and freedom in locations beset with isolation and hopelessness—as solutions to these problems. |
The
Quadrennial Defense Review Report
begins with a simple statement: “The
As Air Force
rescue assesses its ability to contribute to the nation’s efforts in the long
war, one should note that people have debated the question of its overall
relevance for many years. Over time, the rescue community has wandered down
several paths that it hoped would demonstrate a military utility that matches
its substantial capabilities, but none have led to lasting success—the
endurance of the debate offers proof enough of that. One could describe the
options pursued (simultaneously) by the community as “too limited” (restricting
rescue forces solely to support the air component), “too broad” (literally
claiming a doctrinal responsibility to rescue anyone, anywhere in the world,
and at any time), or “too much” (attempting to demonstrate offensive and
special-operations capabilities and, in so doing, pushing the imperatives of
recovering air-component personnel to the periphery of its focus). This has
resulted in organizational instability, a sustained lack of clarity of purpose,
and a significant amount of professional frustration within and about Air Force
rescue. To be sure, the community has an abundance of talent and raw
capabilities. But rescue has lacked a vision for the future that not only
remains true to its Air Force origins and doctrinal responsibilities but also
provides venues to continually exploit its unique capabilities.
The potential for
that sort of future exists, but rescue will need to change its thinking in
order to achieve it. Instead of trying to be something it is not, rescue should
focus on what it does best and apply those capabilities to the long war’s most
pressing requirement—winning the global ideological conflict between the
isolation and sense of helplessness that breed terrorism on the one hand and a
vision of shared interests and interdependency that fosters stability, economic
growth, and freedom on the other. The benevolent core of the Air Force’s rescue
mission has direct relevance to the hearts-and-minds contest that will
ultimately determine the long war’s outcome. Success in that contest lies at
the very center of
The rescue community
should build a brighter, more stable future for itself by maintaining
conventional air-component combat search and rescue (CSAR) capabilities as its
first priority. Subordinate only to that, rescue should exploit its unique
abilities by initiating and maintaining a program for a continuous series of
targeted, highly visible engagements designed to deliver life, health, and
goodwill to remote but strategically important locations around the world. It
should strive to establish itself as something unique within the DOD—a globally capable
enterprise recognized for its expeditionary use of airpower to conduct “white
hat” engagements and known worldwide for its compassionate acts. In short, it
should become a rescue force for the world.
With a unity of
purpose defined in those terms, rescue can create strategic-level effects that
it never could have attained via the well-worn paths it has trod for the last
15 years. The remainder of this article substantiates those points, describes
what the Air Force’s rescue force could become, and explains why that is
important to the Air Force’s rescue community, the service itself, and victory
in the long war.
Groping
for a Vision
After a little
more than 15 years of work, the Air Force should feel satisfied with the CSAR
capability that it has built. Starting from almost nothing in 1989, it
activated multiple squadrons and associated support organizations in the
continental United States (CONUS) and around the world, fielded about 100
HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters, organized effective staffs, modernized employment
concepts that had remained unchanged since Vietnam, built an improved
capability for HC-130s, fostered development of pararescue capabilities by
categorizing and managing them as a weapon system, and much more. The steady
stream of improvements continued even as the rescue community endured the
programmatic and leadership turmoil caused by five changes in major-command
ownership since 1989. One should also note that all of this occurred while the
Air Force’s small community of rescue professionals maintained a
forward-deployed presence in Southwest Asia that has stood watch over the lives
and safety of every service’s war fighters in that region during every hour of
every day since 1993. [MATS and later MAC carried on with world wide operations while supporting
WAR time responsibilities from Jun 1964 through
Despite those (and
many more) significant achievements, Air Force rescue continues to grope for a
defining purpose—one that matches its capabilities and is larger than simply
sitting alert in anticipation of a fighter pilot having a bad day. When
combined with the absence of a long-term vision for rescue within the
community, the search for greater venues for performance manifests itself in a
myriad of intra-community conflicts that defy consensus and resolution. Most of
those conflicts involve pursuit of some new capability offered without context
for how or why it would fit in with the rest. Without such context, the
capability itself becomes the vision. The eventual arrival of replacements for
the HH-60G and HC-130 will only compound the problem since their improved
capabilities will simply trigger a flurry of new initiatives designed to “get
rescue to the fight.” But they will emerge, as before, without some goal in
mind. Which fight? When? For what strategic purpose? Those basic questions do
not receive the thoughtful analysis they deserve. Instead, the pursuit of more
military relevancy continues in 100 different directions.
Within that
persistent, conceptual haze, rescue has produced an entire generation of
operators for whom the very concept of Air Force rescue has no intellectual
underpinning and no common theoretical reference point. Without that, there can
be no articulation of a path toward some coherent goal that will provide an
enduring benefit to the Air Force and DOD—and no way for rescue professionals
to envision a future worth creating.
Containing
Disconnectedness
Of course, one
must contemplate any future for Air Force rescue in context of the long war,
and that reality makes a proper understanding of the nature of the conflict
centrally important. Fortunately, the West’s understanding of the origins of
terrorism has improved significantly since
Winning that
ideological battle—the contest for hearts and minds—will mean routine and
frequent engagement in the weak and failing states that stretch from North
Africa to the Philippines and from Central Asia to Central Africa, as well as
in the world’s ungoverned spaces such as the vast Sahel in Africa.5
They are “regions plagued by politically repressive regimes, widespread poverty
and disease, routine mass murder, and—most important—the chronic conflicts that
incubate the next generation of global terrorists.”6 Strategist
Thomas Barnett collectively describes these regions as “the least connected to
the global economy [representing] . . . the limits of the spread of
globalization . . . where the connectivity of the global economy ha[s]n’t
generated stability, and development, and growth, and peace, and clear rule
sets, and democracies. This is where the disconnected people are, and on that
basis—no surprise—that’s where the terrorists come from.”7
Barnett calls the
combined space occupied by those regions the “non-integrat[ed] gap” (a
convenient term that we shall adopt here for its brevity), and he categorizes
the enemy we face there in a nontraditional way. Instead of targeting a bloc of
hostile nations, rogue nation-states, or even individual rogue leaders, we
should recognize our enemy for what it really is—the “disconnectedness” that
defines the gap.8 Barnett is not out on an intellectual limb; this
condition is the very basis for much of our current national-security strategy.
So in that context, a simple metric becomes available for basic assessment of
any action we contemplate taking inside the gap (military or otherwise): will
it tend to decrease disconnectedness? Certainly, we will sometimes require a
range of forceful military actions to create the necessary conditions, but
decreasing disconnectedness really means winning the ideological battle, which,
in turn, means success in the long war. Granted, conventional military action
is an important part of that huge effort, but from a strategic point of view,
kinetic operations are only a trailing indicator that preventive engagement
efforts have failed. Instead, military force will frequently represent a
necessary step backward that we will occasionally take in order to
move the next necessary two steps forward.
That concept is
neither new nor controversial. The terms humanitarian civic assistance,
civil affairs, theater security cooperation, capacity building, and foreign
internal defense (FID) all refer to established DOD efforts expressly designed
to reduce disconnectedness by forging stronger ties, promoting human rights,
improving the image of the United States and the West, increasing stability,
and setting conditions that will permit flows of foreign direct investment. The
DOD does those things all over the world, every day. In strategic terms, the
struggle to build connectivity with failing states represents the real central
front in the long war. If we wish to find an enduring future for rescue, we
will find it there—in the gap, helping our nation and the Western world win the
ideological battle.
A Rescue Force
for the World
The most direct
and useful advice for rescue professionals who make decisions to shape their
future would urge them to do what they do best. If an Air Force rescue wing can
do anything, it can deploy to austere, remote locations in order to provide
hope to desperate people who need it. That’s what rescue does when it recovers
a fighter pilot, and that’s what the community should focus on in a big way
during the long war. Rescue should use its capabilities and inherently
compassionate mission as both a ticket into the gap and as a nonlethal, even
antilethal, weapon in the long war’s ideological-political struggle.
With leadership,
unity of purpose, and persistence, Air Force rescue could vault itself from its
position as tactical-level support player hovering at the periphery of
conventional combat operations into a high-visibility position of strategic
relevance during the greatest conflict of this generation. It could transform
itself into a rescue force for the world. To reach that point, the community
must focus on several initiatives.
Maintain
Robust Capabilities for Conventional
Combat Search and Rescue
Most importantly,
rescue must maintain and continually improve its ability to assist isolated
personnel in the deep operational environment, and CSAR’s mission needs should
continue to drive the major acquisition and training efforts of the community.9
Nothing else is possible if this part of the contract with the Air Force
lapses. True, keeping this task at the center of rescue’s consciousness invites
accusations that the community is a “one trick pony,” capable only of rescuing
downed fighter pilots. Those who denigrate that noble mission in such a way are
not simply wrong—they fail to comprehend several facts about it.
First, it is a
moral duty. Leadership at all levels supports the premise that we have an
obligation to war fighters to “bring everybody home.” Adm Edmund Giambastiani,
vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, describes the reciprocity of that
compact when he refers to “the power of a force multiplier as we send our young
people into harm’s way with the promise that we will not leave them behind.”10
The moral obligation strengthens when one considers that the weight of
operational failure during CSAR shifts primarily to those in the worst position
to bear it—the people who need rescuing.
Second, CSAR
reduces strategic-level risk. By ensuring that rescue forces can reach any part
of the operational environment, effective CSAR counters the enemy’s ability to
transform a tactical-level incident into an event with strategic consequences.
Our enemies realize the importance of possessing a captive, and they know that
one captive and 30 seconds of video give them a worldwide audience. That
scenario not only hurts US efforts by putting pressure on our strategic
objectives and by creating significant operational and public-affairs
challenges, but also helps the enemy by creating legitimacy, publicity, help in
recruiting, and a boost to his financing.
Third, success in
that mission means capability for success in many others. The training and
integration required to do conventional CSAR create the flexibility that rescue
forces use to succeed at a myriad of other types of missions. The classic CSAR
mission to recover a downed pilot fuses such capabilities as real-time
intelligence analysis and sensor fusion, time-sensitive targeting, net-centric
data management, interagency coordination, close air support (CAS) by fixed-
and rotary-wing aircraft, ad hoc air refueling, terminal area control,
small-team tactics, and battlefield medicine, all at a time and place of the
enemy’s choosing. For proof that conventional CSAR training produces the most capable
force possible, we need only examine the results of major combat actions during
Operation Iraqi Freedom. During those operations, launched from austere,
self-supported locations, more than two-thirds of the personnel recovered by
Air Force rescue forces came from another component—an outcome made possible
because rescue crews had received the best training available.
Fourth, it reduces
operational-level risk across the board. If rescue forces are properly
organized, trained, and equipped, their response to an isolating event will be
neither too small to be effective nor so large that it adversely affects the
overall air war. Needlessly retasking the role of a CAS or sensor platform to
support a CSAR mission will cause someone to suffer. How will it affect the
soldiers and marines who rely on that support for their own effectiveness and
survivability? What happens to the high-value target at the receiving end of
that package’s precision-guided munitions? The presence of a dedicated,
professional rescue force and well-rehearsed CSAR command-and-control decision
making helps prevent those kinds of mistakes. Further, during a properly
executed CSAR mission, supporting assets are at risk only as long as necessary,
preventing needless exposure to the enemy and facilitating regeneration of the
tasked capabilities.
Last, one finds
the weightiest benefit of a robust CSAR capability in the immeasurable effect
on operations yet to be planned and conducted. If the Air Force doesn’t focus
on recovering its own, how will our senior military leadership change its
thinking about acceptable risk? If we allow that capability to atrophy, what
other missions won’t take place? What possibilities will we fail to exploit
because the people carrying out the operation would find themselves at risk
with no device to mitigate it? How would those decisions affect the decisions
and operations of the other services? What effect would they have on the
decisions of policy makers?11
All of the
capability and flexibility that put those questions to rest comes from building
a force focused on the demanding needs of the air component. Ultimately, when
the Air Force builds its one-trick-pony capability to recover downed pilots, it
isn’t building a chow hall that serves only Air Force people—it is building a
set of the most flexible, versatile, and useful capabilities on the
battlefield. Building and maintaining robust conventional CSAR capabilities
benefits the entire joint force.
Go to the
Gap
While maintaining
its robust capability to support the air component, rescue should seize every
opportunity to exploit its existing capabilities inside the gap as an
explicitly white-hat rescue force. After air-component requirements, operations
inside the gap should become the central organizing principle of the rescue
community. The specific objectives of those operations should call for
supporting theater programs designed to forge connectivity between the West and
the gap, using rescue’s unique brand of airpower and broad array of operational
and life-saving skills to benefit its inhabitants in a memorable way, and
strengthening the depth and breadth of experience of an inherently
expeditionary rescue force. Missions undertaken for those purposes will
motivate and inspire the rescue community and demonstrate genuine relevance in
the long war. Not least, it will help the Air Force by providing what it
seeks—a highly visible representation of the best that airpower has to offer.
This is not merely a parochial interest of either the rescue community or Air
Force. Instead, it goes to the very core of
Before any of that
can happen, the rescue community and, in turn, the Air Force need to recognize
those types of missions as legitimate contributions to the strategic efforts of
the nation. Without that realization, Air Force rescue will remain stuck in
place. With it, that community can become a frontline force for beating the
enemy’s strategy instead of the enemy’s army, thereby contributing to the rarest
and most sublime kind of military victory.
Disaster
Response. The most obvious
scenario for employment inside the gap would occur during some sort of natural
or humanitarian disaster. If Air Force rescue performs well and consistently,
it would soon become every theater’s 911 force during those types of crises.
Starvation in
Those types of
large-scale requirements are rare, and even now, at a time when the rescue
community must endure a particularly high operations tempo in support of
operations in
No one should
doubt the effectiveness of humanitarian operations in the long war’s
ideological contest. The response to
I was struck by
the results of a nationwide poll conducted two months [after the relief
effort]. . . . The poll found that, as a direct result of our humanitarian
assistance—and for the first time ever in a Muslim nation—more people favored
U.S.-led efforts to fight terrorism than opposed them (40% to 36%). Perhaps
more critically, the poll also found that those who opposed
One detects an
implied caution in those results, however. A population ruined by a natural
disaster or some other humanitarian crisis will long remember any failure of
the United States to respond if it perceives that America had the capacity to
do so. Participation in those operations comes with an opportunity cost, but
the price of inaction may prove far greater. The world has expectations.
Keep in mind, too,
that the enemy also gets a vote in the outcome. On
Other
Engagement Missions. Although
easy to visualize, major disasters and humanitarian-relief events are rare, and
we should not consider them the mainstay of an “into the gap” strategy for Air
Force rescue. The real benefit will come from repeated, consistent, and
short-duration deployments into target countries. Specifically, the core of
rescue’s engagement activity will come from preplanned deployments in support
of combatant commanders’ theater security-cooperation strategies, designed to
achieve predefined objectives. Those objectives should exploit rescue’s
greatest strength—its ability to deploy to austere, remote locations to provide
hope to desperate people who need it. What would that look like? For starters,
rescue personnel can go to Africa, Central America, or Southeast Asia and set
up a clinic; pararescuemen can get hands-on experience; and a unit can bring
its flight surgeon as well as other medical professionals and stay for a couple
of weeks. People who have never seen a doctor in their lives can get a wound
treated or a checkup or some simple antibiotics.20 And this should
not occur just once—but again and again and again.
Those types of
efforts in humanitarian civic assistance comprise just one of a host of
missions that could serve as the basis for repeated deployments. Unlike the
fairly rare occurrence of disaster-relief efforts, combatant commands offer a
wide variety of theater-engagement opportunities as part of their theater
security-cooperation plans.21 Some opportunities, such as deployments
for training (DFT), are not primarily humanitarian in nature. A DFT seeks to
facilitate training of the deployed unit, but interaction with the host-nation
military is inevitable, allowing the
The variety of
available missions ensures plenty of opportunity to turn a gap-focused strategy
into action. Those occasions will continue to expand since the inherently
humanitarian and non-threatening nature of rescue operations will enable rescue
to go where no other Air Force unit can go. For example, after the dissolution
of the
Why
Foreign Internal Defense Is Different. Some individuals may perceive that the course described for rescue is
already occurring via the FID mission of the Air Force’s 6th Special Operations
Squadron. FID has a specific meaning, and this squadron exists for a specific
purpose—“to assess, train, advise and assist foreign aviation forces in
airpower employment, sustainment and force integration.”24 Although
it could serve as an outsourced provider of FID activity if tasked, rescue’s
best contributions to the ideological contest will come from doing what it does
best—helping people. Further, rescue’s ability to go practically anywhere
(including countries that do not have an air force) provides an engagement
capability when
However, Air Force
rescue professionals who set out to organize an expeditionary, gap-centered
strategy for their community would do well to note how Air Force Special
Operations Command trains its FID personnel and the methods used to organize
its engagements. Through years of experience, 6th Special Operations Squadron
has defined a template for success that rescue can adapt for its own purposes.
Above all, that unit has established an education and training program designed
to maximize the effectiveness of its cadre.25 Informed by the FID
experience, rescue professionals should create their own curriculum for
professional development that augments conventional CSAR training. Language and
cultural-awareness training are important starting points, but much remains.
For example, the following areas need attention: learning how United Nations
(UN) humanitarian or peace-enforcement operations are organized, participating
in the UN’s International Search and Rescue Advisory Group, providing advice to
US Pacific Command’s Multinational Planning Augmentation Team or the DOD’s
Center for Complex Operations, striving to reduce concerns that some
nongovernmental organizations may have about working with the US military,
learning the unique support requirements of the Red Cross, or figuring out how
to communicate with and support the US Agency for International Development,
embassies, Doctors without Borders, and many others. These new challenges are
abundant and growing. The DOD needs more capacity to help solve them, and the
Air Force would like to highlight airpower’s ability to do that kind of work.
We can accomplish
none of the preceding in a vacuum. Rescue’s efforts need to become a carefully
coordinated part of existing theater-engagement strategies, and each operation
must be meticulously planned. We will need time to turn concepts into
actionable plans, learn security-cooperation processes, and establish
relationships with combatant-command staffs and DOD security-cooperation agencies.
We have much work to do, and leaders at all levels need to emphasize its
importance to the rescue community, the Air Force, and the nation. If executed
properly and managed well, rescue’s efforts inside the gap could become the
stuff of legend—representing a force that generates respect, appreciation, and
influence among populations with widely disparate backgrounds. Done right, Air
Force rescue could become an entity with an image that transcends the DOD, and
one can envision the day when even nations hostile to the
A
Glimpse into the Future
Imagine a future
in which Air Force rescue shares its existential focus on robust CSAR
capabilities with beneficent engagement inside the gap so that both concepts
drive the evolution of training, organization, and operations in the rescue
community. Imagine, as a result, the transformation of the Air Force’s
one-trick pony into a world-renowned humanitarian force filled with
multilingual regional experts who have operated all over the world in support
of every imaginable type of contingency operation—a force experienced in
working with every conceivable flavor of government and nongovernmental agency
as it extends its ong track record of audacious, high-visibility, white-hat
assistance to desperate and appreciative people. Envision that force based not
in two CONUS super squadrons but in the seam states that link the gap to the
rest of the world—places such as Romania, Honduras, South Africa, and
Singapore.26 Imagine a future in which Air Force rescue has become
the tool of choice for opening relationships with wary nations and gaining
access to parts of the world that would otherwise remain off-limits to the
United States. Think also of the opportunity to accumulate a detailed,
regionally specific knowledge base that would enhance safe operations should
the Air Force or another service need to return. Think of the enduring
relationships that could be facilitated when an Air Force rescue unit makes a
visit. And think of the value that the captains in those units will bring to
the Air Force when they become colonels.
Imagine a future
in which Air Force rescue’s capabilities transported into the gap are the
service’s most visible image of airpower’s contribution to victory in the
ideological contest that defines the long war. With a unifying vision
manifested in operations and images known and respected around the world,
rescue will do things that nobody else can do and, by doing them, contribute to
increasing the West’s influence across many of the globe’s ungoverned and
disconnected spaces. Envision the transformation of rescue into something new
and, in the process, its promotion to a position of strategic relevance in the
greatest conflict of our generation. Imagine, if you will, a rescue force for
the world.
Feedback?
Email the Editor]
Notes
1. Quadrennial Defense Review Report (
2. The National Security Strategy of the
United States of America (
3. National Strategy for Combating
Terrorism (
4. National Security Strategy, 9.
5. The
6. Thomas P. M. Barnett, “The Pentagon’s New
Map,” Esquire, March 2003, 174, http://www.thomaspmbarnett
.com/published/pentagonsnewmap.htm.
7. Thomas P. M. Barnett, interview by Harry
Kreisler,
8. Ibid.
9. An important first step would involve
redefining the boundaries of expectations erased in the latest version of its
main doctrine document: Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 2-1.6, Personnel
Recovery Operations. That volume used to be called Air Force Doctrine
for Combat Search and Rescue but as of
-2049967.php. The rescue community’s pursuit of something more meaningful has
reduced that moral imperative to a mere “natural emphasis.” That disconnect
offers powerful evidence of the lack of a shared vision within the Air Force
rescue community.
10. Adm Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr., US Navy,
vice-chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (remarks to the Worldwide Personnel
Recovery Conference, Washington, DC, 9 January 2007).
11. Operation Enduring Freedom offers an
excellent illustration of how the decisions of policy makers can be affected if
CSAR is not available. Despite the incredible pressure on the president of the
12. Donald H. Rumsfeld, “Commentary: A Force
for Good,” American Forces Press Service,
13. Examples of that particular operational
advantage were evident during operations after Hurricane Floyd (North Carolina,
1999), floods in
14. “HH-60G Pave Hawk,” fact sheet, Air
Force Link, July 2006, http://www.af.mil/factsheets /factsheet. asp?
fsID=107.
15. Adm Mike Mullen, “What I Believe: Eight
Tenets That Guide My Vision for the 21st Century Navy,”
16. Isambard Wilkinson, “Islamist Groups Win
Support for Pakistan Quake Aid,” Telegraph.co.uk,
17. David Rohde, New York Times
reporter, cited in Colin Adams, “Winning Hearts and Minds in Kashmir,” Religion
in the News 8, no. 3 (Winter 2006), http://www
.trincoll.edu/depts/csrpl/Vol8no3 /Winning% 20Hearts
%20and%20Minds%20in%20Kashmir.htm.
18. Ibid.
19. Mullen, “What I Believe,” 14.
20. This sort of engagement is not entirely
unfamiliar to the pararescue community. For years its members have enhanced
their medical training by participating in civilian-paramedic ride-along
programs or by logging required clinical time in civilian medical facilities in
the
21. The DOD broadly defines the term security
cooperation as “interactions with foreign defense establishments to build
defense relationships that promote specified
.mil/doctrine/jel/new_pubs/jp1_02.pdf.
22. Daniel L. Haulman, One Hundred Years
of Flight: USAF Chronology of Significant Air and Space Events, 1903–2002
(Maxwell AFB,
23. SSgt Julie Weckerlein, “PACAF Commander
Speaks of Enhancing Partnerships,” Air Force Print News,
24. “6th Special Operations Squadron,” Air Force fact sheet, n.d.,
http://www2.hurlburt.af.mil /library/ factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=3496.
25.
26. A major outside-CONUS basing strategy is
neither unrealistic nor without precedent. Some may recall that the Air Rescue
Service used to be a global enterprise with bases in
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Col Michael T. “Ghandi” Healy (USAFA; ME,
North Carolina State University; MS, National War College) is chief of the
Special Operations Support Team (US Special Operations Command) to the
Department of Homeland Security. He has commanded the Air Force’s CV-22
developmental test team, two HH-60G squadrons, the 55th Rescue Squadron, and
the 34th Weapons Squadron. He also served as deputy commandant of the |
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Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the
author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of
[ Home Page | Feedback? Email the Editor]
Not to denigrate the article
"A Rescue Force for the World:
Adapting Airpower to the Realities of the Long War" by Lt Col
DiPaolo et. al., (Fall 2007), but is the USAF trying to reinvent the
wheel? Anyone who visits the USAF
Archives at Maxwell AFB and reads the mission reports for the HH-43 Huskie
helicopter that the Air Rescue Service (later the Aerospace Rescue and Recovery
Service (ARRS) flew from 1959 to 1975 would find that those units fulfilled
most of the missions Col DiPaolo and his fellow authors discuss in their
article.
A good example is a
description of the civic action program conducted from January to March 1969 by
Detachment 3, 38 ARRS, 3rd Aerospace Rescue and
Recovery Group based at Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base,
The Thai people were very
interested in the HH-43, call sign " Pedro”. Immediately after the helos
landed, Pedro aircrews would pass out photos of the HH-43 to the excited and curious
children who surrounded them.
Not only did the venerable
Huskie perform Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) missions in enemy territory
without an in-flight refueling capability and either with or without protective
Rescue Combat Air Patrols, its crews wrote the original procedures for CSAR.
During the Vietnam War, the HH-43 completed more combat rescues - 1,893 - than either
the HH-3 or HH-53 helicopters.
At one time, there were 100 HH-43
detachments worldwide, with aircraft based in the US, Canada, Greenland,
Europe, Turkey, Libya, the Azores, Ethiopia, New Guinea (on a temporary duty
basis) , Japan, Okinawa, Korea, the Philippines, Guam, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Prior to deploying to
MSgt
Stephen Mock, USAF, Retired