Personnel Recovery
- Providing Combat Rescue coverage capable of recovering
personnel wherever and whenever it is necessary
- Claiming them before hostile intent or circumstances do
- Without undue expenditure of resources, effort, or lives
- Ensuring commanders can pursue national interests with
negligible political or military risk from the possibility of
isolated or captured personnel
Deny Adversaries the Opportunity to Exploit Downed Crewmembers
Notes:
SLIDE 5: Charter and Vision We in DoD do personnel recovery for one main reason:
- Individual worth is a core principle in the values of American culture. The society we serve will not tolerate the casual sacrifice of its sons and daughters. Even in war, we must make every reasonable effort to preserve and return those who fight for this nation’s interests.
Failure to recover even one individual can have disproportionate effects -- the hostages in Tehran, Michael Durant, Francis Gary Powers and Scott O’Grady were catalytic in the outcome of matters of historic significance.
Each isolating situation is a small crisis -- a small fire in a dry forest. CSAR forces then are the firefighters who must contain and extinguish -- stabilize and neutralize -- that small crisis before it conflagrates.
We must determine the nature of the threat we counter, the forces we cover, the threats to CSAR and the nature of the battlefield for the future. (1975…). Determine the new objectives, ways of doing business, required infrastructure, and ultimately the investment strategy to meet this evolving challenge.