Here’s something cool that I ran across for my USAF Security Forces buddies. It says ‘Security Police’ which reminds me. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 15 years since the change but do any of you guys remember why they changed it from SP to SF?
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“It’s hard to believe that it’s been 15 years since the change but do any of you guys remember why they changed it from SP to SF?”
Brigadier General Coleman didn’t feel that “Security Police” was inclusive of all the missions that we do. This was followed by a time when there were attempts at reducing the law enforcement mission in favor of air base defense. “Police” just didn’t fit into where the CF leadership at the time wanted to take us.
Hell, I’m old enough to remember when y’all were called the Air Police in the ’60s and ’70s (when I was an AF Brat and then ECM/EMR/ELINT on SR-71 and U2).
My Dad was not charitable to you boys, always called your APes. Don’t cuss him, he ran CIA ops boys into Korea c. ’50-’53 in crashboats and B25s.
Actually hoping my two boys will go SF before too long.
And he passed away in October after drawing AF retirement for 42 years. That’s a win for all us boys in blue.
As a retired SP/SF MSgt, I can speak to this question. When I entered the USAF in 1982, SPs were either LE (Law Enforcement) or SS (Security Specialist). LE worked the gates and base patrol. SS were male only and guarded the flightline, base perimeter, and nukes. One could take the CDCs (Career Development Course) for the other career field and work as a 3 Level in the career field, but had to maintain your primary field.
After the Khobar Tower bombing in June 1996, the Air Force decided to meld LE, SS, and Combat Arms instructors into one field, Security Forces. So, in June 1997 we combined.
I graduated the Security Forces Academy 01 Dec 1998, and was the second to last class to still be separated and only “learn” either Lost Enforcement… I mean Law Enforcement and Security Specialist (SS). SS was separated into two specialties, one was Security Short which you were qualified on the M249 SAW and Security Long which qualified you on the M60. All other training was the same otherwise for the security guys. We still graduated as “Security Forces” but I never did any time doing any base LE duties, didn’t want to. Other guys that graduated with me eventually had to do LE CDC’s and learn LE.
Here is why….AF was going to take Combat Arms and most of the LE homestation LE positions and contract them out. So consolidating all into one allowed staffers to tag all those positions against security wartime slots, saving about 90% of the positions.
That should have happened 15 years ago after the consolidation. Except for LE. Never contract LE duties. Use sworn civilian officers like the DoD Police on many bases but don’t have a contractor enforce law and order.
Agreed….so the career field did give up some positions…AF funded several bases for DOD police and contractors and has since defunded those… leaving the bases to man the posts without the manpower slots..Its a pity
BOHICA
When I enlisted in Jan. 1966 we were still Air Police and changed to Security Police approx. a year later. I always preferred “Air Police”. Has a more authoritarion sound to it. My son in law is currently Security Forces with over 20 yrs. in.
I entered the Airforce in 92′, we were some of the last classes that were assigned to SAC. One of the main reasons for the combination of career fields was money driven. I know at McConnell and at Andrews, they were almost two seperate animals. One handled the law enforcement duties of the base, the other handled the security and ABGD (old school) or ABD missions. Granted sometimes we did a little of both, but each was a specialized field. It was cheaper to combine the fields.