Air & Space Forces Magazine got an inside look at how the California Air National Guard’s 129th Rescue Wing flew a high-risk mission to pick up a patient on a cargo ship 500 miles off the coast of San Francisco last month.
Military Working Dog Callie, a member of the Kentucky Air National Guard’s 123rd Special Tactics Squadron, has proven herself over six years as a valuable resource for the Air Force’s search and rescue mission.
The Air Force's newest special tactics career field, Special Reconnaissance, is part of a larger shift as SR, combat controllers, and pararescumen prepare for near-peer conflict.
In a recent exercise off the coast of San Diego, Calif., Air Force Pararescuemen (PJs) practiced caring for injured patients amid missile strikes, maritime contested airspace, limited supplies, and other challenges meant to simulate what they may face in a war against a near-peer adversary ...
The 414th Combat Training Squadron hosted a training session at the San Xavier Underground Mining Laboratory in Arizona to prepare Air Force PJs for the challenges of rescuing patients in dark, cramped, and dangerous confined spaces.
Staff Sgt. Nicholas Brunetto, a pararescueman with the 38th Rescue Squadron at Moody Air Force Base, Ga., received the Silver Star on Oct. 29 in recognition of heroism displayed during a February 2020 ambush in Afghanistan. “While on a mission, Brunetto and the U.S. Army ...
A pararescueman died during an October 2019 mountain rescue and climbing training exercise in Idaho after an anchor system failed, pulling him off the top of a cliff. Tech. Sgt. Peter Kraines, 33, a Special Tactics PJ with the 24th Special Operations Wing at Pope ...
Air Force Pararescuemen live by the motto, "These things we do, that others may live." Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein owes his life to that motto, having been rescued by PJs in Serbia after his F-16 was shot down in 1999. Now ...
The Air Force is overhauling how it selects and trains special operators, creating a single Air Force Specialty Code for prospective enlistees and streamlining the basic military training process beginning in April. The Special Warfare Operator Enlistment Vectoring program creates a single point of entry ...
Two pararescuemen on Dec. 13 were awarded Silver Stars for their actions during separate battles in Afghanistan in 2018 and earlier this fall. TSgt. Gavin Fisher, a PJ with the 350th Special Warfare Training Squadron at JBSA-Lackland, Texas, received the medal for a two-day fight ...