JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas –
The physical and mental challenges Tactical Air Control Party apprentice course training are intense for its trainees at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland.
Assigned to support the Army in combat zones, TACP operatives spend 18 weeks learning about combat field skills, complex communications technology and slogging through grueling physical training as part of their apprentice course. It’s a career field that requires intensity, fervor and constant attention to detail, said two-time Silver Star recipient Senior Master Sgt. Thomas Case, 25th Air Force Operations Squadron operations superintendent. Case spoke at the 353rd Battlefield Airman Training Squadron Hawk 103 TACP apprentice course graduation ceremony April 5.
For all that intensity, TACP operatives also need to know when to show restraint, said Case. To make his point, Case told the graduating class a story about his 2008 deployment to Afghanistan. During one mission, Case made a pivotal decision not to bomb a compound suspected of harboring enemy combatants.
“My ground force commander wanted to level that house with an air strike, but we didn’t know what was inside that house,” said Case. Instead, he insisted that his team clear the structure manually. “There (inside the house) ended up being 15 children and three generations of a family inside.”
Case said that story is a crucial lesson for all future TACP graduates.
“These guys are hungry. They want to go out there and do their job in defense of this great nation,” he said. “But to go out here and do this job, you can’t be a cowboy. These guys are so young … and I just wanted to make them understand that maturity is expected on the battlefield … and just as much as devotion and fervor.”
While that devotion and fervor can lead to a tactical victory on the battlefield, it can also lead to strategic failure. In the case of the compound, bombing it would technically have resulted in victory; however; it would have come at a terrible and unnecessary price, Case said.
“I’ve heard horror stories overseas where the potentially good outcome of a mission has done a complete 180,” Case continued. “These guys need to know that when something doesn’t feel right on the battlefield, they have the responsibility to correct it.”
Case was honored to pass this message on to young TACP graduates, many of whom will face similar challenges in their future military careers.
Case, who enlisted in 1997, attended TACP technical school when it was still located at Hurlburt Field, Fla. Even though TACP course has found a new home at JBSA-Lackland, Case still has fond memories of the TACP pipeline.
“Being here is just an emotional experience,” Case explained. “But these TACP courses have changed in a good way, too. Seeing all the different types of Airmen – not just TACP – here at Lackland, in some cases training across the street from each other, and at the Battlefield Airman site, that just gives you a sense of unity.”
The TACP apprentice course graduates several classes each year. Each class starts out about 40 individuals strong, on average, but is whittled down to roughly 20 graduates as injury and attrition bump individuals back to a different class. Hawk 103, the class Case addressed, is comprised of 14 individuals.
Hawk 103 graduating class: 1st Lt. Christopher Mittelberg (20th Air Support Operations Squadron), 2nd Lts. Armondo Mercado (7th ASOS), Daniel Hughes (15th ASOS); Senior Airman Timothy Stanich (227th ASOS); Airmen 1st Class Richard Franzen, Andrew Hestley and Nathan McGuire (20th ASOS), Christopher Inocencio and Colten Keenan (7th ASOS), Illiya Tereshchenko (13th ASOS); Airmen Christopher Gutowsky (3rd ASOS), Michael Wartenberg (20th ASOS), Connor Wilson (148th ASOS); and Airman Basic Owen Bender (19th ASOS).
These 14 individuals, Case explained, will be tasked with enormous power: calling in airstrikes and supporting their Army counterparts in future battlefields across the globe. Each graduate will be tasked with ensuring that this power has positive repercussions for whatever mission is at hand.
“As these kids grow up and become bringers of firepower, of air power, they have a duty to make sure they’re putting the right bombs on the right target,” Case said bluntly.
As such, Case urged the TACP graduates to take time to learn about their surroundings, their cadre, and to exercise wisdom beyond their years.
“Maybe if I had been two years, one year, even six months younger during that fight in Afghanistan, I would have said, ‘sure, drop that bomb,’” Case noted. “But fortunately for me, I’d had multiple deployments, so I was able to call upon that restraint.”