Hoping someone knows some history of the USAF PJ community and might be able to help shed some light.

I met someone at a party who says he was an officer PJ, essentially, back in the late 80s and early 90s.  The time/location/atmosphere of the discussion didn't really allow me to pin down much in the way of specifics; he said he had been a USAF doc attached to JSOC at Ft Bragg, and had done the same training that the PJs did in terms of Airborne school and some Navy diving school, but he was quite clear in saying, "I wasn't actually a PJ, though."  He described being part of a couple of SOF-type adventures abroad, pretty entertaining but seemingly humble storyteller. He sure seemed to speak the language of actual former USAF and didn't peg my poser-meter when we started riffing on Big-Blue specific stuff.

Afterward, though, I just wondered how someone could go from standard 1-each military doctor to being the equivalent of a modern-day CRO.  I don't know anything about how JSOC and USAF Rescue work, I'm just curious if anyone knows about USAF officers, doctors, being attached to JSOC and doing PJ-type stuff back in the day.

Edited November 5, 20187 yr by Hacker

27 minutes ago, Hacker said:

Hoping someone knows some history of the USAF PJ community and might be able to help shed some light.

I met someone at a party who says he was an officer PJ, essentially, back in the late 80s and early 90s.  The time/location/atmosphere of the discussion didn't really allow me to pin down much in the way of specifics; he said he had been a USAF doc attached to JSOC at Ft Bragg, and had done the same training that the PJs did in terms of Airborne school and some Navy diving school, but he was quite clear in saying, "I wasn't actually a PJ, though."  He described being part of a couple of SOF-type adventures abroad, pretty entertaining but seemingly humble storyteller. He sure seemed to speak the language of actual former USAF and didn't peg my poser-meter when we started riffing on Big-Blue specific stuff.

Afterward, though, I just wondered how someone could go from standard 1-each military doctor to being the equivalent of a modern-day CRO.  I don't know anything about how JSOC and USAF Rescue work, I'm just curious if anyone knows about USAF officers, doctors, being attached to JSOC and doing PJ-type stuff back in the day.

Not trying to be a dick, but you probably won’t nor should you receive answers or validation to the above query.

Edited November 5, 20187 yr by Standby

FWIW, according to the AF Historian, in a 100% unclassified source, there were. Thanks to the anonymous tipper who pointed the way to that.

Edited November 5, 20187 yr by Hacker

A CRO is less medically trained than a PJ who is less medically trained than a doctor.  

Hacker, 

There were no PJ officers before 2001. The community was represented by enlisted PJs and helicopter officers. There are some SOF docs/special medical capabilities outside of CSAR and I suppose an attached flight doc could do some special/advanced schools,  but never to where a Doc would be classified as a PJ officer because it didn’t exist. 

Cheers