Air Force gate targeted by gunmen guards the Air Force special ops troops

Sig Christenson
San Antonio Express-News
(TNS)

Aug. 26—When Air Force security agents in San Antonio came under fire last week in a pair of drive-by shootings, they were guarding a sprawling, secretive enclave that is a training ground for troops who do some of the Air Force’s most dangerous jobs.

The Chapman Training Annex at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland is where Air Force special ops personnel learn how to scuba dive, call in air strikes, choreograph battles and rappel down rope lines from helicopters, among other high-risk specialties.

The Special Warfare Training Wing at Lackland oversees 16 basic and advanced training courses and selects candidates for elite combat specialties. Those who make the cut take entry-level and apprentice courses at Chapman and get advanced training there and at bases across the country.

At the annex, west of the main air base on the city’s Southwest Side, troops study special tactics, combat rescue, combat control, pararescue and special reconnaissance. They learn about freefall parachuting and how to become a static-line jumpmaster — that’s someone who leaps from a plane with a line connecting his backpack to the aircraft. As the jumpmaster falls away, the line pulls his pack open so the parachute can deploy.

Airmen at Chapman also train as Tactical Air Control Parties, officers who call in air strikes on enemy positions, a specialty that proved vitally important during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Transportation Security Administration agents, the people who check your luggage and herd you through scanners at the airport, are trained at Chapman. So are military dog handlers.

It’s doubtful the gunmen who attacked the main gate to the annex in the early morning hours of Aug. 17 knew much if anything about all this. The assailants sprayed the entrance with bullets in two separate ambushes several hours apart. No one was injured. Their motives are unknown, though the Air Force said there is no sign it was terrorism. The San Antonio Police Department is investigating but has made no arrests.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the combat specialties taught at Chapman.

What’s a combat controller?

They’re special ops personnel who are also Federal Aviation Administration-certified air traffic controllers. Working with special forces units, they stealthily deploy into hostile environments to set up landing strips and establish “assault zones” where U.S. forces can dominate in the air and on the ground. They do reconnaissance, direct air traffic, handle communications and provide fire support. They call in air strikes, detonate the enemy’s roadside bombs and wield artillery pieces.

It takes two years of training to be qualified in this specialty.

“First There” is their motto.

The Chapman Annex is named for a combat controller: Master Sgt. John A. Chapman, who was killed in battle in Afghanistan in 2002 and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

What’s combat rescue?

Combat rescue officers lead ground troops on missions to rescue wounded or stranded personnel. They go into action day or night, on land or in water, in friendly as well as hostile territory. They navigate rough terrain in carrying out recoveries and rescues, and they provide survival and evasion assistance. They also coordinate emergency and trauma care in the field.

Is that the same as pararescue?

Pararescuers are a different and better-known Air Force specialty. Often called parajumpers, or PJs, they’re known for daring water rescues like the one depicted in the movie “The Perfect Storm,” in which they dive into an ocean roiled by a powerful storm off Nova Scotia to save three people in a sailboat. The team’s Sikorsky HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter later runs out of fuel over the Atlantic, forcing the PJs to ditch the aircraft and await rescue by the Coast Guard.

That happened in real life. One of the pararescuemen, Tech Sgt. Arden Rick Smith, was lost in the operation. His body was never found.

PJs are the most highly decorated Air Force enlisted group. Their training is extensive. They’re experts in advanced weapons, small-unit tactics, parachute operations, rescue swimming, combat diving and “high angle/confined space” rescue.

PJs can descend rapidly by rope from a chopper to carry out a rescue on land or in the open ocean. They can parachute from a plane onto a boat, vehicle or other equipment. To top it off, they’re battlefield paramedics.

Their motto: “These Things We Do, That Others May Live.”

What about Tactical Air Control Parties?

TACPs work with Army, multinational and special operations forces to bring air power to bear. It took U.S. and allied forces three weeks to conquer Iraq in March-April 2003, and TACPs assigned to the Army’s Third Infantry Division played a crucial role, calling in air strikes that destroyed 656 enemy armored vehicles and other war machines.

TACPs were instrumental in defending U.S. forces at a bridge outside Baghdad where badly outnumbered American troops faced an Iraqi counterattack. Air strikes orchestrated by the TACPs decimated a column of Iraqi tanks and personnel carriers, clearing the way for the capture of Baghdad.

What’s so special about special reconnaissance?

It’s more than just looking over maps and aerial photos. Special reconnaissance personnel deploy from aircraft, ships and land to infiltrate deep behind enemy lines. The Air Force says their job is to collect intelligence, identify targets “and tilt the battlespace in our favor.” They wage electronic and cyberwarfare, they’re trained snipers, and they can live out of a backpack in hostile territory for weeks on end.

What else goes on at the Chapman Annex?

The annex is home to a Special Warfare Aquatic Training Center, which opened in April to train combat divers. The center has two indoor pools, classrooms, a “human performance” center and medical treatment facilities.

The training at Chapman leads eventually to an eight-week combat dive course in Panama City, Fla. Graduates are certified as Special Operations Command combatant divers, able to use scuba and closed-circuit diving equipment to infiltrate enemy territory.

Chapman is also where working dogs, used for tracking and to sniff out drugs and explosives, get their start. The canines are housed in kennels on the annex and the main base at Lackland.

Lackland is the hub of Air Force basic training, and Chapman plays a key role there as well.

In their sixth week of training, recruits leave the comfort of their dorms and chow halls at Lackland to live in the annex’s more rugged environment. There, they undergo a 36-hour field exercise, PACER FORGE, which includes simulated combat scenarios. The name of the exercise is an acronym for Primary Agile Combat Employment Range, Forward Operations Readiness Generation Exercise.

It was once known as Basic Expeditionary Airman Skills Training, or BEAST. It’s since had a makeover and now uses a coach-athlete mentoring approach to create a more relaxed relationship between novice airmen and their instructors. The trainees are encouraged to make decisions and respond to challenges using their own initiative.

There’s more.

Lackland’s 37th Training Wing operates combat arms training ranges at the Chapman Annex. Instructors train and qualify 45,000 people a year, including all Air Force basic trainees — at least 3,500 of them a month. To qualify, airmen have to fire accurately from a variety of positions and over barricades.

Air Force Security Forces personnel, who serve as military police and protect air bases worldwide, are also trained at Chapman. The 343rd Training Squadron give them what’s called the “Basic Defender” course.

Security Forces personnel are the ones who came under fire at the entry gate to the Chapman Annex on Aug. 17, and the training they had at firing ranges on the annex came in handy that day.

In the first of two attacks that morning, the drive-by gunmen sped off before the guards could respond. The assailants returned a few hours later and started shooting again.

This time the Security Forces fired back.

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