Inside the Air Force’s Newest SOF Career: Special Reconnaissance
Nov. 2, 2023 | By David Roza
Editor’s Note: This is the first of three-part series on Air Force Special Reconnaissance. The second will be published on Nov. 3.
FORT LIBERTY, N.C.— In most professions, the path of least resistance is the best, but the opposite is often true for the Air Force’s newest special warfare field: special reconnaissance (SR).
“Going through sniper school, you try to walk through the worst terrain that you can find because that’s where nobody else wants to go,” said Tech Sgt. J, an SR Airman whose full name was withheld for security reasons. “Vines and sticks grabbing onto your ghillie suit … it can be a pretty humbling experience.
Sneaking through swamps is one of many key skills in SR, where the goal is to provide timely and accurate intelligence needed to apply airpower. They are trained on the full range of reconnaissance tools, from crawling in a ghillie suit and peering through a sniper scope to flying small drones to using other equipment to gather intelligence through cyberspace and electronic warfare.
“All the other sister services have their own reconnaissance assets,” J said. “The Air Force was looking at a more niche capability, specifically for what kind of problems pilots are going to have.”
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-special-reconnaissance/
