Hello Air Commandos and welcome to this online edition of the the Air Commando Journal. Obviously not what you are used to, more about that in a bit. First, I’d like to introduce the articles in this issue.
Paul Harmon, Colonel, USAF (Retired) Editor-in-Chief

First up a little history and heritage of the 27th Special Operations Wing. When AFSOC first took over Cannon AFB in 2007, we all knew the 27th Fighter Wing flew a collection of fighters for decades, but several Air Commandos did a deep-dive on their heritage and found their roots actually go back to the 27th Bombardment Group in the Philippines “Holding the Steadfast line” against Japanese aggression during the very early days of World War II!

“Any Time, Any Place: Thailand’s Secret Air Commandos” is written by a regular contributor, Lt Col Dan Jackson. His latest essay is based on an interview with four Thai airmen who volunteered to fight in the secret war in Laos from 1961 until 1974. Many of our senior Air Commandos, who flew in Laos, likely know the story, but for the more junior folks, Dan’s article will be an interesting read about Thailand’s Fireflies.

The issue moves forward to 1980’s with regular contributor Rick Newton’s retelling of Air Commando support in saving lives during the 1980 MGM Grand fire in Las Vegas, Nevada. Paul Fremsted (Hall of Fame Class – 2023) writes about Operation Honey Badger, the planned mission to go back into Iran after Desert One to rescue American hostages, from his perspective as an Intel NCO who supported the new HH-53H Pave Lows assigned to the 1550th Aircrew Training &Test Wing at Kirtland AFB.

More recently, two of our great NCOs attending the Naval Post-Graduate School wrote an interesting article titled, “Forging Agility” and it is about expeditionary logistics possibilities using advanced manufacturing techniques to support our Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment philosophy. Allie Hulcher, Communications Specialist at University of Alabama in Birmingham Heersink School of Medicine, gives us, “From UAB to Afghanistan: How an Air Force Special Operations Surgical Team saved lives during the last days of the War in Afghanistan.” The title pretty much says it all.

Finally, Steve Hreczkosij, Lt Col (Ret), USAF, another regular contributor, gives us his review of the book, Visual Friendlies, Tally Targets: How Close Air Support in the War on Terror Changed the Way America Made War (Volume I – Invasions) – Ethan Brown, Casemate Publishing, November 2024. Visual Friendlies heralds the Air Force’s role in the recent wars, and is about the men who became emblematic of our air wars, the Joint Terminal Air Controllers, aka JTACs. Hreczkosij writes the book is not just war stories, but also delves into close air support doctrine “efficiently” and the evolution for the “digital” JTAC. Great review of the book which should be on the streets now.

Thanks to all the authors contributing articles to this edition of the Air Commando Journal.

About the change in the Air Commando Journal. It has been a number of months since our last Journal was published and the delay is due to cost (about $10,000 an issue) and lack of content. As a result, the publication of the Air Commando Journal will be suspended for now. Let me say thank you to all Air Commandos and corporate partners for your unwavering support to the ACA and the Air Commando Journal.

Over the last, 13 years, we have published 40 print issues of the Air Commando Journal, which contain nearly 450 articles and book reviews. In those articles, we have pretty much covered most of our fantastic Air Commando history and heritage from “World War II until tonight”… in war and peace. As Airmen, we always are wowed by the equipment, but in each and every story, authors emphasized the outstanding, and many time courageous, Air Commandos who got after the mission and made it happen, whether it be flyers, Special Tactics, maintenance, logistics, and all of the many support functions, without which nothing happens. We know that, “Humans are more important than hardware”, so the Air Commando Journal has always been yours and their story. Without all of you, the ACA could not have done it. Thank you! And thank you for the multitude of compliments and kudos on each and every issue.

Going forward, we are working through the process on how we can continue to bring our members some great reading and updates on today’s Air Commandos. This effort was discussed at the last ACA board meeting and the idea was put forth to do one issue a year that highlights the new class of Air Commando Hall of Fame inductees. The ACA’s annual banquet was changed last year to sync up with AFSOC’s annual Outstanding Airmen of the Year banquet where the command and the ACA honors its best for the year and provides an outstanding forum to introduce our new Hall of Fame inductees. The goal is to publish a print issue to honor the inductees as well as the other award recipients and will include the articles from this electronic issue. In essence, our goal will be one big issue per year published in the August timeframe.

In closing let me reiterate, none of this was possible without all of our great authors who, over the years, took the time to write down their story, passing on their contribution to our history and heritage to the next generation. We at the Air Commando Association and Journal staff remain incredibly grateful for your support in providing Air Commando history, heritage.

Paul Harmon, Colonel, USAF (Retired)
Editor-in-Chief, Air Commando Journal
editor@aircommando.org