IAF Commander: “We need to be prepared for various complex scenarios”
Nadav Deutscher
IDF Spokesperson 30 May 2010 , 19:19
An elite unit of rescue fighters completed its 74 week long training in a
ceremony attended by the Commander of the Israeli Air Force
The ceremony marking the completion of the course to become a rescue fighter
within the 669 Unit – the Israeli Air Force’s aerial evacuation and rescue
unit – took place at the Shilat cliffs, near the city of Modi’in. The newly
integrated soldiers stood on the top of the cliffs – which serve from time
to time as a training place for the unit – and received the special pin of
the rescue fighter wings from the IAF Commander, Maj. Gen. Ido Nachushtan.
Before presenting the wings, Maj. Gen. Ido Nachushtan told the new rescue
fighters who graduated the unit’s 37th cycle: “These wings are the finish
line of the long course during which you have acquired various abilities.
You joined us in a highly significant period for the State of Israel, a
period of strengthening of Hamas and nuclearization of Iran, a period in
which the IAF needs to be prepared for various complex scenarios”.
At the end of the ceremony, Maj. Gen. Nachushtan spoke to the IDF Website,
praising the 669 Unit for its achievements. “The unit is mobilized for
special missions hundreds of times a year and these missions are always
performed in difficult conditions. But despite this, I have full confidence
in them. They rescue people caught in difficult situations hundreds of times
a year”, he said.
The rescue fighters completed an exhausting 74-week long training course,
which included among other lessons a 05 level infantry basic training, a
medic’s course, a parachuting course, a diving course, a rescue workshop, a
commander course, trainings involving helicopters and rescue trainings in
all types of field conditions and weather, including land, sea, mall, ship,
aircraft, car and more.
The ceremony marking the completion of this course opened with the rescue
fighters giving a small taste of the abilities they acquired over the 18
months, vis-?-vis a display including rappelling from a great height in
order to rescue somebody, rescuing wounded people from a Sikorsky CH 53
helicopter using cables to slide down, descending a cliff while carrying a
wounded person using a special sliding technique and more.
“In our mission there are no second chances”
The 669 Unit’s Commander, Lt. Col. Avinoam, spoke after the presentation,
addressing the new rescue fighters. “You can look back with satisfaction and
recall all the missions that first seemed impossible to fulfill and in the
end were possible for you”, he said before stressing their crucial
importance in the eyes of the IAF and the IDF. “Israel copes with various
challenges, and we will be required to operate in places where we had never
operated before. Your operating conditions will always be hard, but you
should remember: in our mission we cannot fail, because there are no second
chances”.
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Website: www.imra.org.il
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