Feel like overcoming a tremendous challenge? Do you want to work with the Army, but be in the Air Force? Would you like to designate targets and guide aircraft in, to destroy our nation’s enemies? Then TACP is for you.
Visit www.airforce.com for more info.
I did 20 years as a TACP, and been out for 11. Both jealous and excited for the progress I see since I started out. Still a lot of confusion regarding “special ops” or not, and TACP/CCT, but it has come such a long way.
When I came in, it was an Open General job that most of us didn’t know about. Some of us signed up after reaching basic training because it was a battlefield airman type job (though that term didn’t exist, I mean it in the sense of “have to carry a weapon, can go to jump school, drop bombs, etc”) that didn’t require being great at swimming (lot of PJ/CCT washouts). But we had guys come in that said “WTF, I joined the AF to work on jet engines, how did I end up here?” As many or more of our tech school washouts were guys that didn’t want to do the job as those that got cut for standards.
Our funding was pretty shitty as we belonged to Tactical Air Command/Air Combat Command who’s first love was fighters while CCT was under Military Airlift Command and benefited from great PR. Our PR was meh, half the time we were seen doing something, everyone assumed we were CCT or worse -thinking we were AF cops because most people knew AF guys in dark blue berets must be cops (It’s a black beret! And I don’t know where you go to get a new base sticker, lady!)
Awesome to see how much has changed. Part of me laments not getting to experience the current climate, but I’m proud to have worked as a 75th Ranger TACP and some SF A-teams, so I contributed in some way – whether my performance at these units sped up or hindered progress, well…