TAC-P (Tactical Air Control Party) personnel are the Air Force’s premiere close air support and joint fires integration specialists. JTAC (Joint Terminal Air Controller) is a certification that allows an individual to say “cleared hot” on the radio. Ethan Brown spent 11 years serving as an Air Force TAC-P and had six deployments to multiple combat zones. His book “Visual Friendlies, Tally Target” uses the stories of multiple Forward Air Controllers to show how close air support in the war on terror changed the way we make war.
Ethan shares a unique aspect of serving as a TAC-P; they often spend more time with the other branches than they do with the Air Force. He talks about the importance of gaining the trust among the troops they are imbedded with in order to go from being “that Air Force guy” to being trusted to “drop 500 pounds of hate” on the enemy.
We discuss some of the examples of actions that affirm the importance of the TAC-P role including dropping ordinance on a group of Taliban insurgents holed up in a building 380 meters from a school.
While technology has profoundly changed the way we conduct combat, Ethan also shares some cautionary tales about modern equipment. One case involved the controller having to replace the targeting equipment batteries in the field. He didn’t notice that it reset with his team’s location coordinates rather than the enemy target coordinates, nearly resulting in the death of the future Afghan President. Another was when the targeting sensors on a gunship were not recalibrated before an urgent mission and a 105 mm shell was fired upon friendly troops.
“Visual Friendlies, Tally Target” is the first in a three part series of books.
TAKEAWAY: JTAC’s wield a tremendous power of life and death. With that comes great responsibility, sometimes including saying “NO” to higher ranking officers.