United States Air Force Pararescue

United States Air Force Pararescue

Pararescuemen (AFSC 1T2X1) are United States Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) and Air Combat Command (ACC) operatives tasked with recovery and medical treatment of personnel in humanitarian and combat environments. Also known as "PJs" (Pararescue Jumpers), these special operations units are also used to support NASA missions and have been used to recover astronauts after water landings. They are attached to other SOF teams from all branches to conduct other operations as appropriate. Of the 22 enlisted Air Force Cross recipients, 12 are Pararescuemen. They wear the maroon beret as a symbol of their elite status, and to symbolize the blood shed by past PJs, as well as the blood current PJs are willing to shed to save lives. Part of the little-known Air Force Special Tactics community and long an enlisted preserve, the Pararescue service began commissioning Combat Rescue Officers early in the 21st century.

Read more about United States Air Force Pararescue:  Pararescue Training and Structure, Notable Pararescuemen, Movies, Current Units, Former Unit

Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, air and/or force:

    Printer, philosopher, scientist, author and patriot, impeccable husband and citizen, why isn’t he an archetype? Pioneers, Oh Pioneers! Benjamin was one of the greatest pioneers of the United States. Yet we just can’t do with him. What’s wrong with him then? Or what’s wrong with us?
    —D.H. (David Herbert)

    The heroes of the world community are not those who withdraw when difficulties ensue, not those who can envision neither the prospect of success nor the consequence of failure—but those who stand the heat of battle, the fight for world peace through the United Nations.
    Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)

    Colonel [John Charles] Fremont. Not a good picture, but will do to indicate my politics this year. For free States and against new slave States.
    Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

    Oh none too soon through the air white and dry
    Will the clear announcer’s voice
    Beat like a dove, and you and I

    From the heart’s anarch and responsible town
    Return by subway-mouth to life again,
    Bearing the morning papers,
    Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)

    ... what is especially insufferable in a woman is a restless, bold, domineering manner, for this manner goes against nature.... [ellipsis in source] No matter what her worth, no matter that she never forgets that she could be a man by virtue of her superiority of mind and the force of her will, on the outside she must be a woman! She must present herself as that creature made to please, to love to seek support, that being who is inferior to man and who approaches the angels.
    Elisabeth-Felicite Bayle-Mouillard (1796–1865)