These Air Force commandos saved troops under fire for years. Now they are fighting to save their buddies
‘I woke up one morning, started typing a mission statement, and First There was born. Really it was out of necessity because I didn’t want my friend to kill himself.’
BY DAVID ROZA | PUBLISHED NOV 2, 2022 10:40 AM
You never know who you might end up sitting next to in class one day. For example, biology students at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill between 2017 and 2019 may not have known that the quiet older guy in their classroom was a decorated Air Force commando who saved his entire team of U.S. and Afghan special operators from being overrun on a 2008 mission in Afghanistan, a mission where he repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire and directed danger-close air strikes against the local militant group despite being shot through the leg.
As incredible as it sounds, that kind of story is fairly common in the world of Air Force combat control. Though many civilians and service members may not know about them, CCTs are some of the most elite special operators on the planet. Trained to the same physical capabilities as their better-known comrades in the Army Special Forces and Navy SEALs, CCTs are also technical experts who can call in deadly close air support within 10 meters of their position with a sucking chest wound while surrounded by enemy fighters.
“Nobody knows about us, even though we kill more people on the battlefield than anyone in the history of human warfare,” retired Air Force CCT veteran Dan Schilling told Task & Purpose last year. “What CCTs do is they stitch everything together, and they determine whether everyone on the battlefield lives or dies.”
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/air-force-combat-controllers-first-there/
