By Lt Col Dave Blair, Maj Kye Stepp, MSgt Paul Benjamin, MSgt Justin Trimble, and MSgt Dan Ruehl
Twelve years ago, in 2006, LTGG Stanley McChrystal tasked a handful of AFSOC crews to find and kill the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, using the MQ1B Predator. The story of that months long operation was documented by CNN’s Jamie McIntyre and released by the DoD to showcase the integration of intelligence and new technologies to support special operations. One little known fact is that AFSOC’s SOF remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) force first stood up under the aegis of the 1st SOW. AFSOC Predator crews from “Pepe” Lehew’s 16th Operations Group, Detachment One, hunted down the terrorist, al-Zarqawi, and then vectored a pair of F-16s to drop two smart bombs on his position. Those same crews became the 3rd Special Operations Squadron (SOS) under the leadership of Gary “Chainsaw” McCollum and Paul “Caltag” Caltagirone. As you can read in this issue of the Air Commando Journal, the men and women of the 3rd SOS went on to tighten the kill-chain around the rest of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. In that crucible, the SOF RPA community was born. Ten years later, in 2016, the next generation of SOF RPA crews reprised the feat of their forebears by flying heavilymodified MQ-9 Reapers to find, fix, and finish senior ISIS and www.aircommando.org
other violent extremist organizations’ leaders, many of whom had been inspired or trained by al-Zarqawi. Across nearly a dozen theaters of conflict, AFSOC crews from the 2nd SOS, 3rd SOS, 33rd SOS and the 12th SOS, along with their US Army SOF RPA brothers-in-arms at the 160th Special Operations Regiment, are protecting friendly ground forces and removing enemies from the battlefield. From bold beginnings, SOF’s RPA community has matured into a decisive capability. AFSOC’s RPA community was forged in combat, but a decade of permanent deployed-in-garrison warfighting has started to take a toll on retention. AFSOC RPA crews only had one basing option, Cannon AFB, NM. That situation limited career development by confining the entire community to one location. Moreover, the new National Defense Strategy placed a premium on force readiness, with the Secretary of Defense charging us to out-think, out-maneuver, and outinnovate revisionist powers across the spectrum of conflict. Recognizing the need to reinforce the foundations of the AFSOC RPA community, Lt Gen Webb boldly directed the stand-up of a Hurlburt Field-based MQ-9 squadron. Fourteen months and thousands of staff hours later, the 65th SOS, the Lucky Dicers, was reborn. Vol 8, Issue 1 │ AIR COMMANDO JOURNAL │ 45
