Mission Monster Mash builds camaraderie

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Cathleen Snow
  • 920th Rescue Wing Public Affairs
PATRICK AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (AFPN) --  A pilot who has been shot down and injured during a combat situation relies on the skills of an Air Force pararescueman to save his life and get him to safety. Known as PJs, these elite military men train to dodge bullets while protecting the people they rescue.

To help prepare them for the unexpected, PJs from here competed in a Monster Mash exercise Nov. 17. The exercise cast them into a suburban beach environment dodging traffic instead of bullets and protecting raw eggs and mannequins instead of pilots.

According to veteran pararescueman Chief Master Sgt. Jeff Curl, it's a friendly competition that not only exercises the PJs, but gets everyone in the 308th Rescue Squadron involved. It also builds camaraderie, an important element, he notes, in the field of pararescue.

The exercise began on the west side of Patrick AFB at the edge of the Banana River. Equipped with fins, four teams of four PJs each plunged into the 70-degree brackish water and swam more than 10 football-field lengths to inflatable boats floating upside down.

Oars for the boats were placed strategically on the bottom of the shallow river to increase the level of difficulty. Until the PJs bobbed to retrieve the oars, their team could not row back to shore and move on to the next event.

Planners kept secret the six Monster Mash events that would take the PJs through sand, land and sea. The well-rounded plan began with inputs from the experts in Air Force Reserve Command's 308th RQS. Weapons, life support, intelligence and survival, evasion, resistance, escape, or SERE, specialists fleshed out the details but they had to work fast. They had to place the obstacles and secure them before the PJs arrived.

The overall goal of the exercise was to include all areas of expertise throughout the 308th RQS, a hefty goal considering the diversity of the pararescue mission, said Senior Master Sgt. Glenn Bickham, a SERE specialist. The experts facilitated the entire series and gave the PJs nothing more than positioning coordinates to each destination.

"We changed this one up," said Sergeant Bickham. By using different coordinate systems and different data at each event, the SERE portion forced the PJs to pay close attention to the instructions and use their global positioning instruments to point them in the right direction.

"If inputted incorrectly, they could end as much as 100 meters off," said Sergeant Bickham.

As each member of the four-person PJ team held onto a corner of a medical litter, they had to balance a 60-pound mannequin atop while sprinting to each site set miles apart.

Another event had them completing five underwater laps at the base pool. Then, they had to demonstrate fire-starting skills while one team member was blindfolded and another had the use of only one arm.

In the final event, nearing physical and mental fatigue, members of the teams had to insert two intravenous injection sets into fellow team members' arms.

"The majority of the teams look forward to doing these events," said Staff Sgt. Joel Corbett, a pararescueman. "It mixes it up and adds so many different things ... it's working as a team to solve your problems."

The competition is a way for the unit to make sure it is in top condition, said Sergeant Bickham.

It's a way "have some fun and improve the odds of being successful," he said.

(Courtesy of Air Force Reserve Command News Service)