Meanwhile, reflecting post-Goldwater-Nichols realities, the CENTCOM air force was not the USAF; it was the USAF plus sizable numbers of aircraft from the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, plus thousands of aircraft from other nations operating under the command of the Joint/Combined Force Air Component Commander, Chuck Horner. In other words, the individual service responsibility to conduct search-and-rescue had grown to include a great deal more than the U.S. Air Force. To handle this new situation, General Schwarzkopf set up a unique combat search-and-rescue organization. While retaining command of CSAR plans and operations in his own staff, the CINC placed his subordinate commander, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Joe Stillwell, and his rescue cell in Horner’s Tactical Air Control Center. The TACC would likely be the first to learn when an aircraft was shot down and if the aircrew was alive; in the TACC, the CSAR cell could maintain contact with rescue forces in Iraq using the AWACS aircraft to relay commands or information; and the TACC controlled the air-to-air, air-to-ground, and Wild Weasel defense suppression forces needed to protect CSAR forces during a rescue. Finally, pilots orbiting overhead could best determine if a helicopter could survive local enemy defenses and make their pickup.

These sensible command-and-control procedures did not sit well with Colonel Jessie Johnson, the Special Operations commander. To Johnson, it appeared that the CSAR commander worked for Horner (a situation Johnson did not like). Stillwell did not work for Horner. He worked for Schwarzkopf.

For obvious reasons, Schwarzkopf tasked rescues in northern Iraq to the air forces operating out of Incirlik, Turkey.

The mission of combat search-and-rescue in central and southern Iraq and Kuwait went to Jessie Johnson. Colonel Johnson’s MH-53 and MH-60 helicopters were based at King Fahd Air Base in eastern Saudi Arabia, where all SOF aircraft were based. When possible, however, they were placed on alert at forward operating locations at airfields along the Iraqi border, such as those near King Khalid Military City, and the towns of Rafha, Ar’ar, and Al Jouf, where A-10s were also operating in their Scud-hunting mission in the western Iraqi desert.

Unfortunately, for reasons already stated, the air rescue mission was never a top special forces priority. Thus, while the CSAR missions were directed and controlled by the joint recovery coordination cell in the TACC, the SOCCENT commander retained final mission approval and refused to okay a CSAF launch until a survivor could be confirmed on the ground. Yet, as always, the SOF airmen of the Air Force Special Operations command were eager and ready to rescue downed airmen anytime anywhere.62

The opportunity came early to test this system. On January 21, 1991, a Navy F-14 pilot, Lieutenant Devon Jones, was picked up in a daring rescue.