Whatever It Takes Facts
Staff Sergeant (SSgt) Matt inside the helicopter, ready to take off. (View larger version)
- PJ training lasts two years, and is so grueling that 90% of candidates "wash out", or don't make it.
- One exercise that encourages bonding between a flight class is carrying around a 450-pound iron railroad track during training.
- The modern version of the PJs took shape during WWII in 1943 over the Burmese jungle, when several airmen volunteered to parachute to a remote location where the crew of a downed aircraft had been stranded without supplies.
- Pararescuemen wear a special maroon beret, symbolizing the blood that they have and will shed in order to aid others in need.
- The motto of the Pararescuemen is "That Others May Live."
- The job of a pararescueman goes beyond military conflicts. When the Gemini 8 space flight, including astronaut, Neil Armstrong, was aborted, Pararescuemen from a base in Okinawa, Japan were first on scene to help the astronauts when they splashed in to the Pacific Ocean.
- Since the Vietnam War, it has been a tradition for PJs to tattoo two green footprints on their buttocks.
- Pararescue training does not throw anyone out. The serviceman must be the one to quit himself.
- With only 400 members, PJs are the smallest United States military unit.
- Pararescue trainees usually have a body fat level less than 13%.
- Pararescue trainees should be able to run three miles in under 21 minutes before beginning training.
- Ketamine was developed in 1962, and began to be used in battle shortly after.
- Ketamine is also used illicitly and recreationally, leading the government to consider it a Schedule III controlled substance since 1999.
- Pneumothorax, or air in the chest cavity, is the second highest preventable killer of soldiers wounded on the battlefield.
- The first line of defense against severe bleeding or amputation is the application of a tourniquet, a device used to constrict or compress blood vessels, to prevent hemorrhage.
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