I ran across this and wanted to share it with all of my brothers here on the
forum.

There is so little written in history about what we have done, and do.
That is slowly changing. This year marks the 65th year of us Defending
the Force.

The author is unknown, but this tells our story so well....

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Take your time..quickly.

Some History.

Blue Beret History

The history of the Civil Air Patrol berets is what is in that article.

The Security Forces first adopted the beret in SEA during the Vietnam War.

All of the "Elite" units now use different colored berets, including CAP. CAP berets are a medimum blue vs dark blue for Security Force Defenders.

The article is well written, thanks for sharing it.

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Take your time..quickly.

Mine was black

AFS

Thanks for posting this. I wore the beret from 1983-1991.

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

We had the option of wearing the blue beret, Aussie style bush hat, or ball cap in SEA in the early to mid-1970's. I usually worked midnight shift (no sun to keep out of my eyes) so I wore the beret most of the time.
I still have mine with the PACAF emblem.

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John

How'd you manage that? Me and every other air force cop I've ever seen wore blue. The only black air force beret that I'm aware of is worn by TACPs or ALOs.

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Don't kiss smiling dogs!

oldafsp,

Great post -- I want to share with you how I became a 'true believer"
in the AF security forces. I had a team of 8 AF security force members assigned to me for an Iraq tour -- we were operating out of the Green Zone during the height of the insurgency and were in the Red Zone every day. I had not been previously educated in their mission or expertise other than guarding aircraft, installations, weapons depots.
Team leader was a hi-speed E-6 who knew his craft very well. Thankfully, we had a week to work out our battledrills together so I could draw on his team's skills and meld them with ours. It worked beautifully -- what a great team they were. 2 weeks into the tour, an AF major (their commander) called me from Lackland AFB and introduced himself (we did not know each other) and asked me to take good care of "his guys". I told him that I would treat them like they were my "own sons" (it is always a concern for a commander to "op-con" his airmen/troops to someone else's command, which I understand). We talked for a while and I told him about a talk I had with our Task Force (the "before the bullets fly" speech) that our team of soldiers, airmen, sailors and marines would face a "crucible" that would test us all and the mark of our service would be how we handled the challenges. He thanked me and told me I had given him some real peace of mind that his airmen would be taken care of.

We had some very intense moments and some very fun moments (flag football played on an Iraqi soccer field, Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations in a combat zone, watching DVD movies in our TF quarters together, etc) -- best of all was sending them all home (no casualties) with the AF Combat Action Medal and Joint Service Commendation medals (and a few other awards). Their performance was exemplary
and gave me a great deal of respect for their mission, their training and the Air Force.

By the way, we relied on AF CAS (close air support) every day and it was always comforting to hear those jets on "loiter" flying their ellipse track, on-call if we needed them that day. We couldn't see them but we could hear them (and so could the insurgents/terrorists). Still makes me feel good thinking about the back-up we had from the AF.

So, thanks for the post and the memories -- good stuff.

I wore the Aussie style hat (go to hell hat) while at Bien Hoa, and if I'm not mistaken, I also had the red beret with PACAF emblem.

I first wore mine with the 56th SPS at Nhakom Phanom RTAFB in 1975. Outside of the Elite Guard units stateside, we were the only USAF unit in the world authorized to wear them. Caught a lot of flak when that yard was shut down in October and we refused to surrender our berets when scattered throughout Thailand. I have a photo of me wearing mine, but can't figure out how to load it ...

oldafsp,
Thanks for sharing. I was OSI, never SP, but I worked with SPs alot and they always did their duty with professionalism........a Town Patrol guy saved my bacon in a touchy situation once upon a time, a long time ago, in a far away place. A lot of our guys were former SPs. keep shootin' and check 6

I served active duty , and when I got my CCW pistol base regs mandated that I check in my gun every time I came back in.I honestly thought it would become some kind of dramatic episode ,but the SPs treated me and my firearms with respect and courtesy. Since I carried every time I left base I got to know those guys real well, and I learned a lot from them about our military weapons.

Thanks for all the wonderful comments guys.

I truly enjoy passing things like this on. The beret is a symbol of how our
Defenders have evolved into a well trained fighting force.

Many of us here, suffered the growing pains of the Force. From Korea through Nam and into the changing world of today. We grew, changed and
never looked back.

I was proud to be a part of it. As I know all of you were.

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Take your time..quickly.

I haven't seen that poem before. Thanks for posting it. I was an SP (Law Enforcement) from Dec 1980 - June 1984. I retrained as a programmer in 1984, but the period as an SP were absolutely the best years of my life.

Joe Henderson

A couple of years ago I found a 1995 Rand Corp study on airfield defense titled "Snakes in the Eagle's Nest". It was a overview of the topic from WWII to that time, and quite interesting. The summary stated that small unit actions against airfields succeeded in damaging or destroying over 2000 aircraft between 1940 and 1992.

This is one good present-day example: "Friday night's (on or about 9/6/12) "well-coordinated" suicide assault on Camp Bastion, Afghanistan resulted in the destruction of six US Harrier strike aircraft and significant damage to two others. The members of the suicide assault team wore US Army uniforms and "appeared to be well equipped, trained and rehearsed," the International Security Assistance Force said.

The nighttime attack, in which a suicide assault team penetrated the perimeter of Camp Bastion, a sprawling base in the Desert of Death in Helmand province, resulted in the death of two ISAF soldiers. Eight other ISAF troops and a civilian contractor were wounded in the attack. Fourteen members of the assault team were killed and one more was wounded and captured."

I believe there were Marine deaths as well, and some after-action analyses. I don't have a complete account at hand right now.





I wore the ersatz bush hat overseas and the dorky baseball hat stateside back in the day. My father once said that the only practical and good looking hat the military ever issued was the old campaign hat. As usual, he was right.

My old unit just had a reunion.

A colleague and I retook the old alarm tower at Grissom.

Years ago I was working security for lockheed on the F-22 flight testing on edwards AFB. My "partner" got playing with the alarm box in our area before I could stop him like the pink panther. We soon were shook down with M-16s etc.
I had another similar experiance "somewhere" in the "middle of nowhere". Something happened to something and I probley was the only human in 30 miles. I knew I was going to be shookdown and got ready for it. I was working in plain cloths as security. About a half hour later I seen a jeep followed by a pickup headed towards me a good mile or two away. Two AP`s were in the jeep and I walked towards them holding my badge in the air. While one was holding his AR on me and the other had his pistol in hand I was trying to explain myself as this old man contract guard walked up from the truck. Kind of reminded me of the pictures here of keith 44, wearing a straw stetson, gray guard shirt and levi`s. He jumped right in and tried to take over the interigation. Who are you he growled at me. I told him my name and said, who are you? I`m GOD, he said. I pulled out a pen and notebook and asked him, how do ya spell God? He backed off and we soon got things sorted out. I had just got to that area on some type emergency and had to spend about two or three weeks there and had only packed for a day or two. It was a unbelivable experiance, but from those two experiances I know they are well trained!

Was part of a small detachment of SP's (MP MOS) that provided inner and outer security for a small signal site in northern IV Corps (Me Kong Delta). Most of my time was on night Roving Patrol. No one liked us-VC and GI alike. You were alone; you had each other and the Grace of God.

Another time about in 1956 my family drove to san clemente from wisconsin to see my aunt and uncle. They ran a cafe on the south end of town and not far from the north gate to pendelton. Marine SP`s patroled with san clemente police. One night my uncle and I were outside the cafe and he had just presented me with a large K-bar knife-bayonet he had. I had the knife in my hand, it was very dark and out of nowhere came this SP and cop on foot. They no doubt knew my uncle and we really were taken by supprise! Good well trained men!

Long overdue thanks to the AP/SP guys at Albrook and Howard. I have a lot of respect for their judgement (and patience). Kept us out of trouble in '83-84. Some of us were prone to misbehave, since we were temporary guests showing up at odd hours. Wish I would have been a little more sociable.

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Halfway and one more step

I still support our Defenders even though I retired out of the Reserves back in '98.
(insert grumpy old sky cop icon here)

If any of you former SP's would like one of these front custom plates PM me, and I'll give you
the info.

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Take your time..quickly.

I just found this old picture. I have no idea who took it or why.

The earnest young butter-bar with the binder is yours truly. There are two uniformed U.S Marshals and my missile security guys. Minot ND, circa 1984 or so. We must have been hauling one of those "neither confirm nor deny" things from its hole back to the base, or vice versa.

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“What you got, ain’t new.”

I was an AP in 1967, I went into Basic Training and after basic I attended the AP school at Camp Bullis. I was assigned to The 410th Bomb Wing at K.I. Sawyer Mi. It was a SAC base. I humped the outer perimeter, the inter-perimeter and entry control. I was injured in a training exercise and forced to retrain. But the training I received while a sky cop severed me well in Viet Nam. I was assigned to a air transportation combat mobility team and spent my tour at a small air field with 7 other men.

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Carpriver.

10 JUL80 to 09JUL84 Shemya AB AK and DMAFB Tucson,AZ. Cobra Ball crash and the end of Titan II in southern AZ. Later, Mark