First generation CRO begins new adventure

  • Published
  • By Capt. Cathleen Snow
  • 920th Rescue Wing
PATRICK AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  If one's career were to best be summed up using a car metaphor, then Capt. Greg Lowdermilk's would surely be a Porsche.

Quality. Enduring. Professional. Legendary.

Captain Lowdermilk spent his 27-year Air Force career in the elite pararescue field saving lives and breaking new ground, but he recently retired from this legendary life to begin a new adventure in New York City.

A sought-after-super-fast-German-made-sport-auto is the simplest way to describe his Olympic record.

After finishing Air Force basic training in 1982, Captain Lowdermilk headed to the military's toughest "jack-of-all-trades" school of pararescue with 68 other men. Pararescue is one of the few congressionally mandated, all-male careers in the Air Force.

The candidates had to parachute, swim, SCUBA dive, fight, survive, perform emergency medical technician skills and rescue a downed Airman while confronting the enemy. After approximately one year of training, Captain Lowdermillk's graduating class was scaled down to seven.

Within two years, three of those seven classmates were killed carrying out their duties. A hard pill to swallow, be as it may, the motto they live by, these things we do, that others may live.

After several duty stations and approximately 65 lives later, the captain became an instructor at pararescue school where he passed on the tough lessons of live-saving skills to others.

From there, he deployed around the world supporting many different military operations. He served in remote locations where he provided life-saving medical care to the locals. He also led several teams to England, Germany, Spain, and Africa supporting NASA's transoceanic abort landing sites where he was credited with saving more lives.

Further, Captain Lowdermilk led the first operational deployment of a Rigging Alternate Method Zodiac, a pararescue technique developed to save the lives of NASA astronauts, where he parachuted from a C-130 Hercules into a dark cloud-filled sky and landed into "what looked like the inside of a washing machine," said Capt. Lowdermilk, to perform a rescue.

During this harrowing mission, he and his team mates became survivors of the Atlantic Ocean. They were 1,500 miles off the coast of Florida and had to swim their way through 15-foot churning seas nearly ¾ of a mile to get to a cargo ship where they rendered live-saving medical care to an injured sailor.

An unexpected twist in his career came after 21 years of service, highly decorated, and at the highest attainable enlisted rank, Chief Master Sergeant Lowdermilk received his commission becoming the first generation of combat rescue officers in pararescue.

As a CRO, one the more noteworthy life-saving events came after the gulf-region was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The captain was part of the largest rescue operation in Air Force history. In the days and weeks that followed, he and 920th rescue teams worked around the clock to reach the people stranded in the wreckage of New Orleans.

Through it all, they had saved the lives of 1,043 people, more than the combined number of rescues in the unit's distinguished 49-year history.

It may be hard to imagine what this modern-day action hero will do after such heroics. Images of a superhero leaping from one skyscraper to the next to save the world can be replaced with a wedding ceremony. He's planning to marry fiancé Jessica and enjoy retirement in New York City where he will begin employment as a project manager for a civilian company.

Captain Lowdermilk has one son and one daughter and one adopted daughter. They are, son, Geoffrey, 23, and daughters, Melissa, 20, and Jessica, 19.

In his spare time, the captain makes sport of racing cars, his current favorite, Porsches.

Finally, when asked about his long-time career of saving 235 lives, the captain said, "It was my pleasure."