AFSOC Music Video: Special Tactics Airmen & Bitchin Tunes….

@Tango9 @SEAN And I to you. I would not have been a SAR swimmer if I hadn't been squared away in boot camp by a Navy Chief doing the job you did in the AF.

@Tango9 @SEAN Roger that. There's a good reason for that. Back in the mid 80's there was a division in SAR work between the Air Force and Navy. AF got all the overland stuff and the Navy got coastal and at sea rescue. When I went thru SAR school the Coast Guard didn't deploy swimmers, they just threw you a raft or ring.(the joke used to go; "How do the Coasties do Search and Rescue? They yell; 'Here! Catch this!'"). During the time that I was in the CG began to send swimmers thru the Navy school and then opened their own. And the Coasties have superb SAR crews now. During the time I was in the Marines also began sending guys thru SAR school. One of the first classes with Marines in it was mine(A Gunny in my SAR class with Para wings and a Recon tab said there was nothing in the Marine Corps as tough as SAR school was). After you got to your first operational squadron you would train in weapons for combat SAR, because the Navy flew several different Helos back then. The Sea King, the Sea Knight, the UH1 Huey, the Super Stallion(several varients) and mine the SH2-f Sea Sprite by Kaman Aerospace and they would all do C-SAR differently because of the crew size on these different platforms. My bird deployed on Frigates, DDGs and DDs. The Sea Hawk was coming into the fleet just as I was getting out, but it was so big some of the Frigates and DDGs couldn't land them. so the Sea Sprite stayed in service until the late 1990s. The Aussies and New Zealanders still fly them. So, here's the reason Navy SAR wasn't SOF back then. We hunted submarines. SAR was our secondary role. Our primary job was stalking Soviets subs and there were lots of them to hunt. And we were deadly good at it too. So, we really didn't get to work with Navy SpecOps very often and if we did we often didn't even know about til afterward. Anyway, you would not risk rountinely ASW aircrewman on SpecOps missions against the Soviets, Cubans, NORKs or Chinese because of their high security clearance. You don't want them captured by the Chinese or the Soviets or any of the other baddys we were messing with back then. During the cold war it was said that ASW was the Soviet's #1 intelligence priority, they wanted to know how we hunted them so effectively. My own security clearance was a NOFORN clearance which meant we didn't even share ASW stuff with our NATO allies. Now, since the collapse of the USSR the sub threat is much less and I think lots of guys going to SAR school today are from other ratings rather than just ASW guys. Back in my day it was hard to find a SAR swimmer who wasn't an anti-submarine warfare operator. I've heard that Navy Combat SAR trained crews are now being tasked by SOC because so much of that kind of work is going on now and they need the air assets. I know guys who were trained sub hunters doing C-SAR in Iraq but if they fell into enemy hands I don't think the AQ guys would know what they had.

 @SEAN SPOONTS  @Tango9  @SEAN I think I already know the answer.  To you, sir, I raise my glass of... (looking)... cranberry juice and hot water (I'm old, and those tequilla days are over).  As someone who might know, I offer that I appreciate every mind-numbing day and every heart-racing day that you put in.  I can't have been where you've been but I know enough to appreciate it.

 @SEAN SPOONTS  @Tango9  @SEAN were you a Navy SAR guy?.  I know our PJ's did land stuff, and water (need be) but the navy guys had a different flavor, and one not often recognized as SoF. 

@Tango9 @SEAN Yeah, we had a lot of regard for the PJs. The TACP and CCT's back in the 80s were very small units and you didn't hear anything about them. Anyway, if a swimmer just in from the replacement airgroup gave any of us 'veterans' that "That others may live" stuff in the ready room we would all say in unison; "and 'others' doesn't mean you asshole!" It was one of those inside jokes that always made us laugh. It supposedly had its origins with a Senior Chief at HS-1 Sar School in the late 70s who was explaining the selflessness demanded of a Navy Rescue Aircrewman.

 @SEAN SPOONTS  @Tango9  @SEAN Yeah, and you know as well as I do:  that's not a motto you want to mock.

 @SEAN SPOONTS  @Tango9  @SEAN However, as an MTI, I was fortunate enough to make a trip to the Pentagon for some useless award Lackland AFB received.  While there, I somehow found myself in the Hall of Heroes, alone, for about 10 minutes (know how rare that is?).  This was just after Gary Gordon and Randy Shugart were awarded the Medal.  Like... a week after.  I don't share those 10 minutes with many people so I won't here.  But I also knew TSgt Wilkinson (PJ) was awarded the AF cross, and he sort of went on a tour of BMT to recruit.  From that point forward I pushed as many of my snot factory airmen into TACP/CCT/PJ schools as I possibly could.  I trained over 2000 airmen and only 4 made it.  I'm pretty damn proud of those 4, wherever they are.

 @SEAN SPOONTS  @Tango9  @SEAN I was not a PJ or any AFSOC.  No, I did my time mostly training airmen in BMT.  I miss those old dark blue dress shirts.  They phased them out the year I joined.  The slate-blue shirt with ribbons and badges my MTI wore made the paint on the wall stand at attention.

@Tango9 @SEAN Hahahahha.....You're right about the uniform. In the Navy we hated the summer whites. We liked the black long sleeve shirt and slacks with the visor cap. Believe it or not the ladies loved the cracker jack uniform. I can't tell you how many times I.....Well you get the picture. I wish the Air Force would go back to the Eisenhower jackets in dark blue that they had in the 50's and 60's. Those looked good! We you a PJ? I had a funny recollection when I heard the "That others may live" motto in the song. You see, in the Navy we used to mock it with a reply(gallows humor) among ourselves if a new swimmer in the squadron got all up in himself and said "That others may live", but you didn't dare mock it if you weren't a SAR swimmer. Just wondering if PJs did the same thing.

 @SEAN SPOONTS  @Tango9  @SEAN It's so difficult... the powder blue uniforms they make us wear... it's like all clouds and sunshine and flowers painted on my car.  touching the face of god in a jet and becoming an astronaut (oh, wait, we don't have those anymore).  Ok, who turned off the air conditioner?