The story goes something like this.  When I was on operational assignment in Alaska in 1973, John Tobey pulled my name out of the hat to assist him on the Pararescue Selection Team at Lackland.  I had worked under John in Korea therefore he knew my potential, probably better than I did.  He had to pull some high-ranking strings to get me reassigned.  Even though I had only been in pararescue a relatively short time, about six years, I already had critics.  I retrained in 1967-68, and had been operational in the Azores, Korea, and Alaska.  As a retrainee, I automatically had a black mark against me, I hadn't been to Viet Nam, though I was extreme about combat readiness, and I pushed a hard work ethic.  Pararescue had plenty of screw-offs during that period, old-timers who were over the hill and young guys who went straight to Viet Nam and thought they were above and beyond regular Air Force rules.  In the back of my mind, I conceptualized what I thought a good pararescueman should be like.

 

    At Lackland, John and I were a great team, a relationship I cherish to this day.  John gave me pretty much a free hand on establishing and enforcing selection and indoctrination training standards, standards we both believed in from our past experiences.  We wanted guys who were physically tough but highly intelligent as well.  From that set of standards, we came up with what I called the "best of the best," the Bob Holler's, the Garry Lewry's, the Bruce Hickson's, the Steve Wofford's, the John Cassidy's and so on.  Grant it, not all were perfectly polished and there were guys I won't mention who got through who we wished we had booted out.  However, I believe to this day our percentage of good outweighed the bad and most of the ones I mentioned are making strong contributions to this day whether direct or indirect.

 

    After Lackland, I was reassigned to Korea where I stayed for four consecutive short tours.  Now, I was in a position to work with some of the guys I had recruited.  We were on freedom's leading edge for that period.  Most were as good or better than I had expected.  I also reestablished some old relationships, the most notable being Bob LaPointe who in my book ranks as one of the best pararescuemen ever.  During that series of short tours, I established a liaison with a pararescueman named Dan Galde.  Dan had a variety of strengths that I capitalized on.  He was a Son Tay raider and had a thorough understanding of doctrine; command, control, and communications; and special operations concepts.  I soaked this stuff up like a sponge.  Dan was the team boss at Kadena and I was the team boss in Korea.  Together, we worked on getting our pararescuemen involved in as much joint and combined activity as possible.  It was tough because of the naysayers and peace-niks within the rescue command lines but we prevailed to a large degree.  Through these efforts, we were able to work with SF, SEALs, UDT, Marines, Combat Control, Security Police, Australian SAS, Philippino forces, Korean forces, etc.  We drew from the strengths of each organization and applied it to concepts on how to conduct Combat Search and Rescue operations. 

 

    Finally, the guys at rescue headquarters forced me out of Korea, probably for the best.  I was reassigned to Eglin where the integration of rescue with special ops was taking place.  I got to witness that conflict first hand and learned, at least from my point of view, that special ops had a can-do attitude while rescue was extremely negative.  I had my share of conflicts on this assignment.  While I preached combat readiness, most of the team members were more interested in "solar radiation training."  There were some good ones like Dale Jones, Ron Taylor, and Emilio Jaso but the majority were misguided.  Our training at exercises and at team level, except for the special ops interface, was a farce.  I changed a lot of that but made more critics in the process and not just pararescuemen.  In fact, some of the flying officers in the unit were the biggest problem.  With those who supported my ideas, we did begin to develop some good small team tactics and began to breach the command and control problems.  While I was assigned at Eglin, Dan Galde was reassigned to the headquarters.  Dave Milsten was at the 39th wing.  Even though Dave and I didn't agree on all my concepts for pararescue, he liked my work ethic.  Dan decided to retire and wanted me to replace him as a charter member of 23 Air Force to take over the pararescue tactics position.  Dave Milsten had been chosen to be the pararescue chief at headquarters.  Between the two of them, they broke down the barriers and pull the strings to get me reassigned.  

 

    When the leadership organized 23 AF, they dispersed pararescue through out the staff.  This was a real plus for me.  I was assigned to Current Operations and the boss there was Tom Bradley, a colonel from the special operations side of the house.  And later, his replacement was another colonel from special operations (name slips my mind).  They were both fun to work for because they were forward thinkers with the can-do attitude.  I worked concepts and exercises.  I started pushing the small team concept in exercises, especially the Quick Force exercises, to lay the ground work for how to fight a war in the area where you are today.  I wanted to establish proof that the small-team concept could work and Bob Holler and his team did just that.  That doesn't mean I abandoned the concept of direct rescue by helicopter.  I just wanted to expand the option list and from the pararescue stand point offer alternatives.  Of course, the small-team effort is the hardest for pararescue. 

Not only did I work concepts for combat but for peace time operations as well.  The RAMZ concept is an example and also demonstrated the advantage of having my position in current operations.  NASA lost Challenger and they were looking for a new and expanded approach for their rescue and recovery operations.  Because of my experiences in Apollo recovery, I had been in touch with Chuck Hassler at SMOTEC for sometime about improving mobility for pararescuemen conducting water operations.  Chuck had some great ideas on how to use a motorized-inflatable watercraft and planted a seed in my mind.  Challenger opened the door.  We didn't even have a proved concept but after my presentation, they bought the whole thing hook, line, and sinker.  I mean they even funded the test and evaluation phase and bought all the boats and motors.  Chuck reassigned from SMOTEC and handed the reins over to Bob Holler.  Chuck was excited to have Bob replace him because he knew Bob was a better "nuts and bolts" man.  The rest is history! 

Well, not quite.  As the pararescueman assigned to current operations and later to the Commander's Pararescue Advisor, Colonel Behling, I was the prime point-of-contact to the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center which was collocated.  Through that contact, I was able to push advanced uses of pararescue in peace-time operations like employing from any aerial platform, using pararescue forces with RAMZ for other than NASA rescue and recovery operations, and using pararescue teams for recovery operations like the Codel Leland recovery in Ethiopia.  Those were exciting times.  Did I ever have doubts about some of my decisions and advice to the bosses, you bet I did.  However, I knew we had a great bunch of guys out there who needed a chance to prove themselves and their advanced pararescue concepts and I had to take the chance.  I just prayed God would see us through, He did.

 

    When 23 AF moved to Hurlburt, I was transferred to HQ MAC to be a charter member of the Combat Control and Pararescue Directorate.  I toured the halls of the headquarters seeking out contacts to teach me more about doctrine, command and control, and communications.  I spent hours on the phone getting input from operational pararescuemen.  The expertise was there.  All I had to do was put the information on paper combined with all the other data I had accumulated from those experiences outlined above.  Because the publication was classified, I had to do all my own typing and editing and I am not the world's best typist.  Terry Wetzel was there to push the coordination process which was a must before we could publish.  There you have it, 3-4 documented my "forward thoughts" and those of a whole bunch of other awesome people. 

 

                                                                            T.J. the P.J.