8. DUTY LOCATIONS RESERVE PARARESCUE
Portland IAP, OR
Patrick AFB, FL
Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ
9. THE TRAINING PIPELINE.
Your training will take approximately 15-24 months. It includes eight schools
for each specialty. You will be offered to take leave at some point during
training, but this cannot be guaranteed. Students travel from school to
school as a class, with the ranking student in charge. Training consists of the
following schools:
The Pararescue/Combat Rescue Officer Indoctrination Course.
10 weeks, Lackland AFB, TX. The mission of the Indoctrination Course is to
recruit, select and train future PJs and CROs. At this school you will
participate in extensive physical conditioning with lots of swimming, running,
weight training and calisthenics. This course helps prepare you for the rigors
of training and the demands of these lifestyles. Other training accomplished
at this course includes physiological training, obstacle course, rucksack
marches, dive physics, dive tables, metric manipulations, medical
terminology, dive terminology, CPR, weapons qualifications, history of PJs,
and leadership reaction course. Graduation of this course is "your ticket to
ride" the pipeline and begin learning those special skills that make PJs highly
regarded special operators.
U.S. Army Airborne School. 3 weeks, Fort Benning, GA.
Here you learn the basic parachuting skills required to infiltrate an objective
area by static line airdrop. This course includes ground operations week,
tower week, and jump week where you make 5 actual parachute jumps.
Personnel who complete this training are awarded the basic parachutist
rating and are allowed to wear the coveted parachutist's wings.
U.S. Air Force Combat Dive Course.
6 weeks. Pensacola FL. The course is divided into four blocks of instruction:
(1) Diving Theory, (2) Infiltration/Exfiltration Methods, (3) Open Circuit
Diving Operations, and (4) Closed Circuit Diving Operations. The primary
focus of AFCDC is to develop Pararescuemen/Combat Rescue Officers and
Combat Controller/Special Tactics Officers into competent, capable, and safe
combat divers/swimmers. The course design provides Commander’s with
divers/swimmers capable of meeting worldwide Personnel Recovery and
Special Operations waterborne mission taskings. AFCDC provides diver
training through classroom instruction, extensive physical training, surface
and sub-surface water confidence pool exercises, pool familiarization dives,
day/night tactical open water surface/sub-surface infiltration swims,
open/closed circuit diving procedures, underwater search and recovery
procedures, and the training culminates with a waterborne field training
exercise (WFTX).