Legacy – The 1990s, 9/11, and Beyond

AFSOC came out of Desert Storm and remained “off the radar” for much of the next decade. Despite the lack of media coverage, however, AFSOC was working hard to implement the lessons from its early fights in Panama and the Persian Gulf as well as Desert Storm, along with working to bring new capability and capacity into its forces. This included being one of the joint partners on the new V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor transport aircraft with the Marine Corps. One of the requirements that spawned the Osprey had its origin in Operation Eagle Claw, when a longer-ranged tilt-rotor like the V-22 would have been able to perform the rescue without the need for a forward refueling area like Desert One. AFSOC also spent much of the 1990s working hard to improve the capabilities of its Special Tactics personnel to better communicate and designate targets for precision airstrikes and artillery fire, refining their skills as they operated from Somalia to the Balkans. So when the call to action came on Sept. 11, 2001, AFSOC was ready to make history with its SOCOM brethren.

On Oct. 19, 2001, AFSOC MC-130s dropped a company of the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment onto Osama bin Laden’s personal hunting lodge, designated Objective Rhino. Simultaneously, AFSOC Special Tactics Combat Controllers were deployed into northern Afghanistan, attached to Army Special Forces “A-Teams” that were working with insurgent militia forces. Within hours, the Combat Controllers were calling in precision airstrikes with deadly efficiency. In addition, AC-130s were once again delivering devastating precision firepower from above, something they continue to do to this day in Afghanistan. And perhaps most impressively, MC-130 tanker transports conducted some of the most impressive and dangerous in-flight refueling missions in history for the helicopters of the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), along with the MH-53s and HH-60s of AFSOC. These were often conducted in “lights out” conditions less than 500 feet above ground level in mountainous terrain, yet in debilitating “high and hot” conditions more than 10,000 feet above sea level.

Perhaps AFSOC’s most impressive job during the initial stages of OIF was the transport and support of the combined 10th/3rd Special Forces Group that worked with the Kurdish Peshmerga forces to move into northern Iraq.

While AFSOC units and personnel were working hard in Operation Enduring Freedom-Afghanistan (OEF-A), there were other commitments they were serving. One of the more substantial ones was Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines (OEF-P). Targeted against the Abu Sayyaf insurgent group in the southern Philippine archipelago, OEF-P was an extremely successful joint international counterterrorism/counterinsurgency campaign run through Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines, which was just recently shut down this year.

Just 18 months after the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom, AFSOC was tasked to fight another war in Iraq, this time called Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). The largest SOF operation in history, OIF began in March 2003 with simultaneous maritime, air, and land operations throughout Iraq. Once again, the capabilities demonstrated in Afghanistan were put to use, particularly for the Special Tactics ground personnel, who regularly called in “danger close” air, missile, and artillery strikes in the nick of time. Perhaps AFSOC’s most impressive job during the initial stages of OIF was the transport and support of the combined 10th/3rd Special Forces Group that worked with the Kurdish Peshmerga forces to move into northern Iraq. Badly outnumbered and very dependent upon the Air Force Combat Controllers for precision airstrikes, the small force under then-Col. Charles Cleveland swept 16 Iraqi divisions from northern Iraq, liberating both the oilfields and several large cities.

The dozen years since the initial invasion of Iraq have been busy ones for AFSOC. Always the consummate “quiet professionals,” AFSOC has discreetly been conducting operations while reorganizing, along with adding new capabilities for the fights ahead. Several years ago, AFSOC finally brought the CV-22B variant of the tilt-rotor Osprey into service, and has fully committed to the type, using it around the globe. AFSOC is gradually replacing older C-130 variants with the C-130J for its various other missions, employing “Super Hercs” for tanker/transport, gunship, and psychological warfare broadcasting/communications duties. AFSOC has also acquired and is improving a vast new training range complex at Cannon AFB in New Mexico, after Air Combat Command’s departure from the facility.

Today, AFSOC is very much a force that is multitasking. On the one hand, AFSOC continues to quietly and discreetly fight in America’s wars, doing so with a growing capacity across a wide set of capabilities on a global scale. At the same time, it is a community that is in the process of both modernizing its aircraft and the technologies in them, and building the infrastructure necessary for what it will be asked to do in the middle of the 21st century.