The Inaugural TACP Running Club 24-Hour Run is a fundraiser for the TACP Association in memory of three of our fallen that happened during the month of March: Maj Gregory “Linis” Stone, SSgt Jason Faley, and SSgt Jacob Frazier. This event will take place during the 24 hour period of Sunday March 18th.


The Format
The 24-Hour Run is primarily to honor and remember our fallen but is also a fundraiser to help support the TACP Association. Since this event will take place at multiple locations it will be left up to the location POCs on how they want to raise money. One option is where runners receive pledges per mile for distance run by an entire group, this option forces you to go out and solicit pledges. Pledges can be as either a flat donation or a per mile pledge. A second option is place flyers around post/base explaining the event and cause with information on how to donate or pledge money. You can also contact Base/Post Organizations, base/post newspapers and Public Affairs to help get the word out. I want to also get the TACP Association to setup a donation section so people can go directly to the TACP-A Webpage and donate that way. As soon as I know if that’s an option I’ll pass that information along. I will send the flyers out via-e-mail to the Squadron Supers/Ops Supers and other leadership soon. If you want them sent directly, please let me know.


The runners do not run for the entire timeframe but are platooned around the clock in order to give them rest, hydrate, and keep the motivation high. Units/Organizations/Groups can be creative with how they cover the time blocks. My Group (3 ASOS) is split between two locations and more than 60% of the ASOS is Deployed. We plan to use spouses, kids,retirees, deployed members, TDY Members and split times between our two locations. If individuals want to participate let me know and I’ll hook you up with a Unit and with some preplanned efforts and a time hack it will work. These events typically are done on a Track but any measured distance can be used as long as the team/group is aware of the course and distance of each segment. Each runner runs a segment and hands off a TACP Coin to the next runner while a recorder keeps track of the runners name, time, and overall tally of miles. You can also use GPS logs so runners are not forced to run a specific course or distance. It’s really however you want to run this event, just have fun with it!


Eric “Ivan” Rankin

We lost one hell of a Great ROMAD last week – Here’s the info that’s available thus far:


Still no definitive info on what caused his collapse, but with his family history, a heart attack seems the likely culprit. A Celebration of Life will be held on January 15, 2012 – Time/Location is TBD.


Dennis was a GREAT man, HUGE in both stature and soul – He will be dearly missed by all that knew him, as he had a certain “Je Ne Sais Quoi” that will be forever absent in our future endeavors…


I know he’s up in Valhalla, reserving a chair for me… But I won’t sit in the damn thing, till it’s been swept for Thumbtacks and chalk dust!


DRIVE ON AIRBORNE! We got it from here.


Joel “Hotmike” Hokkanen




To donate to the TACP Association in honor of Dennis, click the button below.

Airman establishes a mentorship program to help others recover

BY TECH. SGT. CHRIS POWELL

http://airman.dodlive.mil/still-here/

1 December 2011

Today marks the 8-year anniversary of A1C Ray Losano’s ultimate sacrafice.

RIP

Story by Tech. Sgt. Kevin Wallace

HERAT, Afghanistan – The battlefield is a dangerous place and soldiers fighting there know that each engagement could be their last.

When flames of combat swell into an inferno, soldiers often rely on close-air support to overwhelm the enemy, or sometimes, to merely survive.

Tactical Air Control Party airmen control CAS, advise ground commanders, and are often that vital link to their fellow servicemembers’ survival.

Within the TACP community, they sum their mission in three simple words: Advise, assist and control.

TAC-P is broken out into various career fields: Joint Terminal Attack Controller; Radio Operator, Maintainer and Driver, who are normally referred to as TACP; and Air Liaison Officer.

These airmen are either assigned to an Army combat unit or special operations forces. For many of these airmen, Army life and soldiers are what they know.

“We give these soldiers all we can,” said Senior Airman Jose Cruz-Richardson, a JTAC deployed to Bala Murghab, Badghis province, Afghanistan for much of 2010 and early 2011.

Cruz-Richardson recently returned to Fort Hood, Texas. While at BMG, he controlled the skies above 7th Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment Soldiers during countless missions in that valley.

Air Force Staff Sgt. David Olson is currently deployed to BMG and is one of a three-man team whom replaced Cruz-Richardson’s team.

Olson is a TACP, a communication expert who assist JTACs in the performance of their duties while working to attain JTAC status for himself. When asked why, as a staff sergeant, he sought the retrain, his reply was simple:

“I wanted to be part of a brotherhood that is uncommon in any other job,” said Olson, who hails from Tulare, Calif.

Since day one of basic military training, every airman is grilled that the mission of the Air Force is primarily to put bombs on target, said Air Force Staff Sgt. David Chopik, a TACP from Naples, N.Y.

TACP is the tip of the spear that actually gets it done.

“We patrol with [soldiers] and get into the mix of combat with them,” said Chopik. “When the enemy gets too close, my job is to do what I can to get CAS or a show of force from the Air Force. These guys are my brothers.”

Soon after arriving to BMG, Olson and Chopik, and their JTAC (Senior Airman Joseph Gilbert) were tested during a White Platoon, Bulldog Troop (7-10 Cav. from Fort Carson, Colo.) foot patrol near Combat Outpost Delorean in southern BMG.

“We were going to recon the river valley and maybe talk to some locals,” recalled Olson. “That was the first time we got shot at. We continued forward and provided two 2,000-lbs GBU bombs on enemy fighting positions. The Army got what they needed out of that mission.”

A soldier agreed.

“We were under pretty heavy fire and got eyes on a large amount of insurgents grouping in one particular building,” said Army Sgt. Tyson Husk, White Platoon scout. “We had JTAC on the ground with us and they called in CAS. A B-1 Lancer overhead dropped a bomb on the compound and neutralized the enemy. Given their numbers and location, we would have likely suffered injuries or worse taking their location.”

Though that was the TACP Airmen’s first time seeing combat up close, it wasn’t, nor likely will be, their last.

The three-man TACP team’s mettle was tested again when Red Platoon (Bulldog Troop, 7-10 Cav.) performed a 72-hour mission near COP Metro in northern BMG. They patrolled further outside the BMG security bubble than coalition forces ever had previously.

Red Platoon was met with hostility throughout the mission, and on the final day, a brutal firefight ensued.

“We were pinned down and in really bad shape,” said 19-year-old Army Spc. William Newland, Red Platoon scout.

Newland and the other scouts were under heavy small-arms fire and were bunkered down in old Afghan ruins. They were engaged from a compound directly north of them and insurgents were using rivers on their east and west to move and flank their location.

Adding complexity to the engagement, insurgents moved women and children into the tree line on the western river, which allowed them to attack Red Platoon at will, and handicapped the coalition forces’ ability to return fire in that direction.

“[The insurgents] began hitting our defenses hard with [rocket propelled grenades] and four servicemembers from our team, plus a bomb-detection dog, were wounded by one of the RPGs,” said Newland. “I was really scared. When CAS arrived for a show of force, then launched [Hellfire] missiles and dropped bombs, it allowed our egress and saved our lives.”

Gilbert, from Lafayette, La., and the TACPs directed that CAS from Forward Operating Base Todd.

“The show of force was just to try to deter the enemy from engaging the troops on the ground,” said Gilbert. “But the firing continued and the guys starting taking RPG fire so we engaged the enemy’s position with the missile.”

At that moment, Army 1st Lt. Joseph Law, Red Platoon leader, ordered his men to quickly leave their fighting positions. The team fought their way into the eastern river and, under continuing fire, fought about two kilometers southward in the river bed where Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles waited to assist their escape.

After relocating and treating their wounded, Red Platoon mounted MRAPs and pushed back north to re-engage the enemy, said Gilbert, who at that time had a remote piloted vehicle and a B-1 Lancer in the skies waiting to assist.

“The B-1 provided one 500-lbs GBU bomb on an enemy fighting position, and neutralized it,” said Gilbert.

Meanwhile, Red Platoon scouts found an improvised explosive device making facility. They determined the building was bobby trapped and requested CAS to destroy it.

The TAC-P airmen responded and directed two more 500-lbs GBUs to be dropped on that location.

“The next two bombs took out an enemy cache that was booby trapped with explosives, tubes and rockets,” said Gilbert. “From the first to the last engagement, I knew the troops on the ground needed to get back to their COP, and every ordnance we provided helped accomplish their egress.”

Once back to COP Metro, Law said he was happy all his men survived, and thanked his TACP brethren for the large role they played in that fact.

“JTACs can change the course of any firefight or any enemy worldwide,” said Gilbert. “We can use aircraft in a defensive posture to try to deter the enemy from firing on our soldiers, or we can go kinetic and make sure those insurgents will never fire upon a soldier again. The lives of our Soldiers are a priority for everyone involved.”

3/25/2011
by Staff Sgt. William Banton
1st Special Operations Wing Public Affairs

HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. — Editor’s note: This article is part of a series detailing the trials and tribulations of the students of Tactical Air Control Party class Falcon 86 on their journey to become fully qualified Battlefield Airmen.

Thirty-six hours into the field training exercise week, the Tactical Air Control Party candidates of Falcon Flight 86 were running off less than one hour of sleep.

During the past eight weeks, Falcon Flight 86 endured rigorous physical training and meticulous academic schooling, including small unit tactics and combatives, to prepare them for the five-day FTX, designed to push the candidates to their limits.

“I’m a little anxious [about the FTX],” said 2nd Lt. Jesse Swanson, TACP candidate, before the week began. “I hate the building up phase, because everyone is talking about it and I’m just ready to get into it.”

During the FTX, the TACP students are expected to perform land navigation, react to simulated improvised explosive devices, perform defensive and offensive actions, all while sleep deprived.

“The FTX is the culmination of everything they have been taught up until this point,” said Tech. Sgt. Thomas Jenn, Falcon flight instructor supervisor. “They are going to have to have to listen and they are going to have to execute, because this is what we do.”

For most of the candidates, nerves run high during the FTX. They have made it halfway through their 17-week course to become a member of the less than 1,200 elite TACPs. With their TACP futures on the line, the pressure is on.

By 6 p.m. of day two, the candidates had already started to prepare for their night land navigation evaluation. After two days of practical training and day evaluations, the candidates were expected to travel to specific coordinates through the rural terrain of Eglin Air Force Base Range by themselves.

Before the instructors released the students into the untamed Northwest Florida woodlands, the empty vastness of the night had taken over the range. For many of the Airmen this was their first time in the wilderness at night, magnifying the difficulty of their task even more.

Each candidate was allowed two instructor assists during the course of any evaluation before failing that task. Missing items or mistakes in route planning also counted as instructor’s assists.

“They put you under a lot of pressure and you are expected to perform under that pressure,” Lieutenant Swanson said.

Within the first 20 minutes of the evaluation, multiple candidates had already failed. According to the TACP instructors, many of their mistakes were likely made due to their lack of sleep.

“If you don’t execute here you fail, you get in trouble, you get washed back,” Sergeant Jenn said. “If you fail in the real world, you die or one of your team member dies and the mission fails.”

As the FTX came to a close, the strain of the week’s events showed on the remaining candidates’ faces. These candidates have endured more than 120 hours of practical training, survived severe thunderstorms, lived in ditches, protected convoys, raided enemy camps, navigated the wilderness, and survived injuries – all for the opportunity to earn the right wear the prestigious black beret of the TACP.

But there’s still another 312 hours of training to go.