Pararescue: Air Forces missions.
The Pararescuemen (also known as PJs) are responsible for providing emergency and life-saving services to airmen, soldiers, and civilians in both peacetime and combat environments.
Their main tasks are:
- Providing emergency trauma and field medical care
- Moving recovered personnel and material to safety or friendly control
- Assisting in and perform Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE)
They operate in six geographic disciplines: mountain, desert, arctic, urban, jungle, and water.
Pararescuemen truly live up to their motto, That Others May Live.
These special operations units are also used to support NASA missions and have been used to recover astronauts after water landings.
Since Pre–World War II
As early as 1922, there was a recognized need for trained personnel to go to remote sites to rescue airmen.
In that year, Army Medical Corps doctor Colonel Albert E. Truby predicted that “airplane ambulances” would be used to take medical personnel to crashes and to return victims to medical facilities for treatment.
However, it was another two decades before technology and necessity helped to create what would eventually become Air Force Pararescue.