Signed, SEAL'd, delivered, courtesy of the King

  • Published
  • By By Capt. Cathleen Snow
  • 920th Rescue Wing Public Affairs
PATRICK AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  Although the Air Force Reserve Command's 920th Rescue Wing calls the Florida beachside base here home, as a small search-and-rescue unit that deploys worldwide its Airmen tend to spend a lot of time whipping up foreign sand in their turbo-prop and rotor-wing aircraft to bring home service members who get stranded in enemy territory during war.

Although, its services are sometimes requested for dropping Special Forces troops off as well.

During the 25th Annual National UDT-Seal Museum Muster in Fort Pierce, close to home, Nov. 6, 2010, a 920RQW HC-130P/N King aircraft made a special appearance overhead to drop off the Navy's official parachute team, the Leap Frogs, to commemorate veterans and fallen SEALS.

Among the 5,000 military and civilian attendees, the distinguished representatives of the event included Astronaut and Navy SEAL commander Chris Cassidy; Adm. Eric T. Olson, commander, U.S. Special Operations Command; U.S. Rep. Thomas J. Rooney of Florida; retired Navy Capt. Robert Bedingfield, UDT-SEAL Museum chaplain; retired Navy Capt. Michael R. Howard (SEAL), UDT-SEAL Museum executive director; retired Navy Lt. Thomas Norris (SEAL), Medal of Honor recipient; David F. Godshall, UDT-SEAL Museum board of directors vice president; and Willard B. Snyder, UDT-SEAL Museum board of directors president.

"As a unit that includes maritime search-and-rescue among its capabilities, and whose pararescuemen train, "that others may live,"(the wing's motto) we share a common bond with the Navy and its seals and are happy to support events that honor sister services and its members who gave the ultimate sacrifice," said Ft. Pierce native and 920th Rescue Wing Commander, Col. Robert "BDU" Dunn.

During the weekend event, members of SEAL Team 18 swam into the Atlantic Ocean to release the ashes of fellow SEALs who died within the last year to commemorate them at Fort Pierce Beach, Nov. 7.

Picking up Special Forces troops and dropping them off, is common for the 920th RQW. As the most deployed Wing in the nation, Rescue Reservists are used to performing operations in the cover of darkness to austere airfields in places like Africa and Afghanistan, and denied territory for expeditionary, all weather personnel recovery missions.

It's squadron of Kings, the 39th Rescue Squadron, recently returned from a two-month deployment in Africa where they not only performed several search and rescues, but they supported anti-pirate activity in the Horn-of-Africa region.

Rescue Wing Reservists even put their rescue skills into action for Navy Seal who needed their help fleeing from the Taliban after he was injured in Afghanistan in 2005. The Rescue Reservists are featured in a Smithsonian-channel documentary titled, "The Taliban Gambit," which details the former Petty Officer First Class Marcus Luttrell's harrowing ordeal as the Lone Survivor of Operation Redwing.

The King is an extended-range version of the C-130 Hercules transport. Its mission is to rapidly deploy to execute combatant commander directed operations including those previously mentioned and helicopter air-to-air refueling, humanitarian assistance operations, disaster response, security cooperation/aviation advisory, emergency aeromedical evacuation, noncombatant evacuation operations, and space flight support for NASA.

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