Injured Behind Enemy Lines, This Guy Is Your Best Friend
Master Sgt. Ivan Ruiz offers a rare look into the secretive world of Air Force pararescuemen
Master Sgt. Ivan Ruiz, one of the Air Force's elite pararescuemen, was awarded the Air Force Cross for saving two wounded during a raid on a Taliban compound in Afghanistan.
Photograph by Staff Sgt. Bertha A. Flores, U.S. Army
By Mark M. Synnott
PUBLISHED August 18, 2016
For several years the Navy SEALs have reigned as media darlings, with dozens of insider books published by former operators and Hollywood movies dramatizing their exploits. But the Air Force has its own group of special forces operators, the pararescue men or PJs—highly trained medics and fighters whose job is to rescue injured military personnel and occasionally civilians from battlefields and other extreme environments.
Their exploits almost never become public, but recently the Air Force granted National Geographic a rare interview with Master Sgt. Ivan Ruiz, a 16-year veteran and recipient of the Air Force Cross.
Between the roar of F-15s taking off from a base in Lakenheath, England, Ruiz spoke via Skype about the life of a PJ and the night of December 10, 2013, when two of his teammates were wounded after his unit raided an enemy compound in the Afghan village of Mushan in Kandahar Province.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/08/adventure-rescue-pararescue-mountain-climber-air-force/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=link_tw20160817news-rescue&utm_campaign=Content&sf33718960=1
