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Deployed Airman explains how TACP is critical to supporting forces downrange

  • Published
  • By Maj. Jillian Torango
  • 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait --  Every U.S. Army ground maneuver unit has one and yet most Soldiers or Airmen don't know what it is: it's a team of Airmen. Tech. Sgt. Adam Schwartz, a Joint Terminal Air Controller with the 82nd Expeditionary Air Support Operations Squadron here is one of those Airmen who have spent his entire 13-year career alongside an associated Army unit.

That fact helped him choose his career field during basic military training.

"I just wanted to join the Air force so I came in open general," said the fourth-generation Airman who is deployed from Ft. Hood, Texas. "So when they had the chance to brief us on the different functions that were available, the [tactical air control party] TACP recruiter told me that we'd get to drop bombs, drive humvees and work with the Army and so I was sold on it right away."

It's not really all about humvee driving and bomb-dropping, which is a misconception associated with the specialty.

"People assume all we do is put bombs on target but it's more than that, close air support requires detailed planning, coordination, and training; it's really using fixed or rotary wing assets against hostile targets that are in close proximity to friendly forces," said Schwartz. "I like to think we save friendly lives by coordinating close air support to neutralize targets."

Getting that CAS isn't as simple as making a phone call, it is always well thought out through the military decision making process.

During the decision making process a TACP Air Liaison Officer is at the targeting meetings with the Army unit. This is where the TACP finds out the ground commander's intent and starts to develop what airpower is required to accomplish the mission. At this point the TACP ALO injects how CAS could best meet the ground commander's intent and identifies where the JTAC would need to be located, either in the command center our outside the wire.

"What we are doing is looking at what assets we have, what weapons they are going to be carrying and the times we are looking to request them. Then we develop our plan of how we can integrate our CAS and ourselves into the commander's overall plan," said Schwartz. "We don't ever actually request a specific asset but we request an effect."

Once the ground commander states what effect is to be achieved, the TACPs send up a Joint Tactical Air Request and the planning and operations teams get to work determining what type of weapon system is needed to address the intended effect and what aircraft are available to do the job then the decision is complete.

Even though a TACP is comprised of Airmen, they know about all of the fixed and rotary wing assets within their area of responsibility no matter the service. It is not uncommon to find TACP members working with air assets from all of the services and in some cases countries.

This job allows Schwartz to work with a wide variety of personnel and working with those different units, military services and nationalities is something that Schwartz especially enjoys.

"In this career field we get to work with not only Airmen, but coalition forces, and our sister services," he said. "Guys get the opportunity to support everything from infantry, to armor, to special ops. The capabilities that we bring and the plug and play asset that we are allows us to support anybody at any time."

Schwartz is nine months into his fifth deployment to the region and with only about fifteen hundred TACP members and roughly eight hundred JTACs that plug and play capability keeps the Airmen in this critically manned career field in high demand.

"The preponderance of the fight today is actually made up with the Airmen you see here," said Lt. Col. Jamie Conley, 82nd EASOS commander.

The true mission of the TACP is to provide air support to the Army and according to Conley, being deployed to Kuwait helps them do just that.

"We've been very fortunate here in Kuwait that we've been able to get air about three weeks per month which is much more than we get in garrison. We need to talk to aircraft to test our skills and quite often at home station we have to send our teams TDY [temporary duty] because air is not readily available," said Conley. "Even though we are on standby to respond to any crisis inside the region this abundance of air has enabled us to stay focused on honing our skills."

Schwartz agrees the deployed environment here in Kuwait is beneficial for the unit.

"Here it is even better because we're not only continuing to train on the current counter insurgency mission but we're also able to expose our young Airmen to large scale force-on-force type tactics," he explained. "If something were to happen we want to make sure we're prepared for anything."