CHRISTIANSTED, U.S. Virgin Islands - A squadron of special tactics Airmen from the Kentucky Air National Guard completed a grueling five-day exercise Aug. 30, testing their ability to perform a broad spectrum of operations in a maritime environment while responding to an enemy threat.
The Airmen, including combat controllers, pararescuemen and special reconnaissance troops, operated from the island of St. Croix to conduct land, sea and air missions with fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft as part of exercise Emerald Warrior 25.2, according to the special tactics officer who served as lead planner.
“Our Airmen exercised their unique skillsets to parachute into contested territory, establish airfield operations, control aircraft, respond to search-and-rescue scenarios, manage notional medical evacuations and conduct reconnaissance and targeting operations on a very tight timeline,” the officer said.
St. Croix and its neighboring islands provided an ideal training environment, he added.
“Operations in the Caribbean simulate many of the geographical features our forces may encounter when deployed around the globe,” he said. “Having to overcome the kinds of challenges presented here will make us a more lethal and effective force the next time we conduct littoral operations anywhere in the world.”
The St. Croix event was just one piece of Emerald Warrior, a large-scale special operations exercise staged in multiple locations by Air Force Special Operations Command to train special operations components, sister service, interagency and partner forces. The exercise simulates missions for a theater campaign to support combatant commanders operating in a volatile environment against strategic competitors.
A key focus was Agile Combat Employment, meant to advance the ability to project air power in complex, unfamiliar or contested environments while working from distributed locations with limited support, the officer said.
The exercise, staged and executed by forces from the Louisville, Kentucky-based 123rd Airlift Wing, kicked off Aug. 26 when six special tactics Airmen parachuted into the Caribbean Sea with an inflatable boat, 3 miles off the shore of St. Croix, from a Kentucky Air Guard C-130J Super Hercules. Eleven more combat controllers and pararescuemen then jumped directly into Henry E. Rohlsen Airport from the same aircraft, with both forces combining to take control of the airfield. Within minutes, the Airmen had cleared the runways, established perimeter security and implemented air traffic control, allowing the C-130 to land and offload crucial assets.
In another mission, spanning two days, a group of Airmen traveled 75 nautical miles by boat to conduct reconnaissance and targeting operations on a nearby island held by simulated enemy forces.
Two other scenarios tested the squadron’s ability to conduct search-and-rescue operations and provide medical care in challenging environments.
In the first event, six pararescuemen and combat controllers were tasked with finding survivors floating in life rafts on the open ocean after their plane crashed at sea. Over the course of a 32-hour scenario, the Airmen located the victims while flying over the crash site in a C-130J, parachuted into the ocean with two inflatable boats, provided on-scene medical care and controlled medical evacuations via helicopter hoist operations.
“This was a particularly demanding scenario designed to test both the rescue capabilities and the survival skills of our Airmen on the open ocean,” the planner said.
Other training included exfil and infil operations on land and sea from UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters that were provided by the Mississippi Army National Guard’s 185th Aviation Brigade and a mass-casualty exercise involving civilians wounded by an industrial accident. In that event, Airmen were required to triage patients, provide battlefield medical care and control their evacuation via Black Hawk helicopters from the Virgin Islands Air National Guard Station.
Such complex operations required coordination with numerous entities, the planner said, including the U.S. Coast Guard; the U.S. Virgin Islands Governor’s Office, Police Department and Air National Guard; officials at Henry E. Rohlsen Airport; local marinas; and dozens of area businesses.
The exercise also relied on essential capabilities provided by the squadron’s combat mission support team, including radio technicians, diving gear specialists, parachute riggers, vehicle maintenance troops and administrative specialists.
“An exercise of this scope, which has been in the planning stage for over a year, would not have been successful without the combined efforts of everyone involved, from our combat support troops to the governor’s office to local citizens who were so supportive of our efforts to ensure our nation’s security.”
Special tactics Airmen from the Kentucky Air Guard are among the most highly trained military operators in the world. The unit’s combat controllers, pararescuemen and special reconnaissance specialists are capable of deploying by land, sea or air into almost any environment for combat or humanitarian operations.
Mission sets include clandestine deployment into contested environments to establish and control austere airfield and assault-zone operations; environmental reconnaissance and tactical weather forecasting; battlefield trauma care; and personnel recovery operations, including casualty evacuation and combat search and rescue.
The unit’s Airmen have been heavily employed in humanitarian-response operations over the years, including earthquake and hurricane recovery missions. They were among the first U.S. forces on the ground following a devastating earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010, directing initial C-17 airdrops of humanitarian aid and controlling a massive resupply effort that delivered 20,000 pounds of food, water and medicine.
Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, special operators from the wing established and operated a helicopter landing zone on a highway overpass in New Orleans, helping evacuate nearly 12,000 citizens. In 2017, following Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, the unit deployed 18 personnel to the Houston area to rescue 336 citizens stranded by floodwaters; and 23 Airmen to the Virgin Islands to provide air traffic control for 636 rescue aircraft, evacuating 1,286 U.S. citizens from the Dutch island of St. Maarten.