In recent days, I have written articles for The National Interest on several of the U.S. Armed Forces’ Special Operations units, namely the U.S. Army’s Delta Force and Special Forces (“Green Berets”), and the U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team 6, aka DEVGRU. But now, speaking myself as a proud U.S. Air Force veteran, it’s now time to confer recognition upon my own service branch’s bad*** SpecOps warriors: United States Air Force (USAF) Combat Control teams (CCTs).

That’s right, even my beloved, kinder, gentler “Chair Force” (as the sister services like to call us) has its fair share of door-kickers and snake eaters, but they tend to get lost in the shuffle publicity-wise. However, as noted by the narrator of the General Discharge series video titled “Who Are The U.S. Air Force Combat Controllers (Inside America’s Most Dangerous & Capable Operators),” “Well, would it surprise you if we told you at one point or another a CCT has been embedded with all of these communities?”

NOTE: Besides the CCTs, USAF Special Tactics Teams (STTs) include Pararescue Jumpers (PJs), Tactical Air Control Party (TACP), and Special Reconnaissance (SR).

Official Description and Mission

As per the Air Force Special Tactics Special Operations Wing (24 SOW) official info page:

“Air Force Special Operations Command's combat controllers are ground operators assigned to Special Tactics squadrons. They are trained special operations forces and certified FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] air traffic controllers. The mission of a combat controller is to deploy, undetected, into combat and hostile environments to establish assault zones or airfields, while simultaneously conducting air traffic control, fire support, command and control, direct action, counterterrorism, foreign internal defense, humanitarian assistance and special reconnaissance in the joint arena.”

Where It Began

Air Force Combat Controllers trace their roots back to the Army Pathfinders of World War II; the CCT’s present-day motto, “First There,” pays homage to these roots. In January 1953 (five years after the USAF was established as a separate and independent branch of service), the Combat Control Team received its own standalone designation. Their “founding father” was then-Master Sergeant (later Chief Master Sergeant) Alcide Sylvio "Bull" Benini.

Though I can’t do them justice within the confines of a 1,000-word article, suffice to say that USAF CCTs went on to serve with distinction in far-flung Cold War conflicts from Korea to Vietnam to Grenada.

USAF CCTs After the Cold War

Air Force CCTs and their PJ comrade-in-arms finally started receiving a little bit of publicity thanks to their heroic actions in Operation Gothic Serpent, the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, particularly due to Mark Bowden’s bestselling 1999 nonfiction book Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War. Amongst the many heroes of that battle were combat controllers Technical Sergeant Jeffrey Bray, a Silver Star awardee, and then-Staff Sergeant (now retired Lieutenant Colonel and published author) Dan Schilling. (Tragically, Bray passed away in October 2016 at the way-too-young age of forty-nine.)

After the 9/11 attacks and the resultant Global War on Terror, CCT took on an even greater degree of importance. Out of the eleven Air Force Crosses awarded for action in Afghanistan since 2001, eight were awarded to CCTs, with the other three going to PJs. Far and away the most famous CCT of the post-9/11 was MSgt John Allan Chapman, Medal of Honor recipient. Tragically, Chapman’s Medal of Honor and his promotion from TSgt to MSgt were both posthumous, but his sacrifice was most certainly not in vain.

Long story short: whilst attached to a SEAL team during the Battle of Takur Ghar in March 2002, then-TSgt Chapman was severely wounded and regrettably left behind; mortally wounded and all alone, John held his ground against two dozen enemy combatants, fighting for over an hour, killing at least two insurgents, destroying an enemy fighting position, and saving the lives of his entire twenty-three-man rescue team, before finally succumbing to his wounds.

Weapons of USAF CCT

USAF CCT operators have been known to carry the following weapons:

· Beretta M9 9×19mm pistol (being phased out in favor of the SIG Sauer M17/18 in the same caliber)

· M4A1 Block 2 5.56×45mm carbine

· MK-20 Mod 0 sniper support rifle

· M320 40mm grenade launcher

So, You Wanna Be a CCT?

Well, HOOYAH! (Yes, that’s right, Air Force Special Tactics Teams use the same battle cry as the Navy SEALs.). But it sure as hell won’t be easy. Here’s the pipeline you have to look forward to if you want to earn the CCT’s prestigious scarlet beret:

· USAF Basic Military Training (BMT); seven and a half weeks

· Special Warfare Candidate Course (SWCC); seven weeks

· Special Warfare Assessment and Selection Course; four weeks

· Special Warfare Pre-Dive Course; four weeks

· Airborne School; three weeks

· Military Free-Fall Course; four and a half weeks

· Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) School; three weeks

· Air Traffic Control (ATC) School; nine weeks

· Combat Control Apprentice Course; thirteen weeks

· Special Tactics Training; six months

Just to get your proverbial foot in the door, here are the bare minimum standards for the AFSPECWAR Initial Fitness Test (IFT) (formerly the Physical Abilities and Stamina Test):

· Pullups: eight

· Sit-ups: fifty

· Pushups: forty

· 1.5-Mile Run in under 10 minutes and 20 seconds

· 2x 25-meter underwater swims

· 500-meter surface swim in under 12 minutes and 30 seconds

Again, these are bare minimums; in order to sufficiently impress the instructor cadre and be taken seriously as a candidate, you’ll need to exceed those minimum standards by a considerable margin. The pipeline has a washout rate of 90%-95%.

I wasn’t a CCT during my own Air Force career, but not for lack of trying; as I noted in an article on Combat Search-and-Rescue for Simple Flying, during my first weekend at BMT, I did the PJ/CCT tryout just for the hell of it (not to mention a legitimate excuse to get some brief respite from our Military Training Instructors). Alas, I couldn't hold my breath underwater long enough for the 25-meter swim. Ergo, I didn’t get to wear the scarlet beret, but I was still proud to earn the blue beret of a USAF Security Forces troop (and saying “HOOAH” instead of “HOOYAH”).

HOOYAH, USAF CCT!

Image Credit: Creative Commons.