USAF Combat Search and Rescue. Untapped Combat Power

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USAF Combat Search and Rescue. Untapped Combat Power

L. K. DePalo

In the early morning hours of 20 April 2004, the 64th Expeditionary Rescue Squadron (ERQS), operating from a base inside Iraq, launched two HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters to rescue the five-man crew of a US Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter reported shot down in the vicinity of Baqubah, Iraq. The mission went smoothly, with the combat search and rescue (CSAR) crew members and parares- cue specialists ('PJs,' formerly pararescue jumpers) conducting the operation exactly as they had trained. This CSAR mission was the second successful recovery of a Chinook crew in four days and the unit 11th combat mission since arriving in early December 2003 to support Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). While this was not the most harrowing mission the unit executed, it was still very significant since it was the unit's last combat mission tasking for the next eight months. These low- density/high- demand (LD/HD) forces, whose members had rotated in support of the global war on terrorism (GWOT) continuously since the GWOT began, spent more than 200 straight days after executing- the above mission without performing- any missions other than training-in the Iraqi theater.