Pararecuer Jumpers

Sorry I was MIA last week. I meant to post from conference but it got away from me. Hopefully you checked out the guest blog by bestselling author Susan Fox and her latest book. If not, scroll down and read her interesting post.

I got a lot of information last week; some for story plots and other for marketing, etc. Tuesday we started with Jarrod, a pararescuer jumper in the Air Force.  PJ’s started during the Vietnam War. Their motto is “That Others May Live”. They use helicopters (birds), usually A-60 Blackhawk that are equipped just like our ambulances.  And consist of a team of four members, 2 pilots, a gunner and a PJ . They carry a pack that allows them to care for an individual for 72 hours.
These four are very close. Jarrod’s said they were so close they could almost use each other’s social insurance number.  There are no female pararescuers and one reason could be the closeness of the men together.  There are two units, the Rescue Unit which picks up the victims, protects them, provides medical treatment and delivers them to the hospital. The other unit is the Special Tactic Squadron.
Basic training is held at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas – Indoctrination (indoc).  It lasts about 6-7 weeks. Their daily schedule looks like this: 4 AM – run; revile; breakfast; calisthenics, weights, and laps in the pool, lunch, pool, march, run, 2 hours for themselves, run and bed. I don’t know about you, but I was exhausted before lunch). After basic training they have an additional 18 months training (pipeline) and then they are assigned to their team.

Next post will be on Forensics.