CCTs provided vital intelligence and deployed with joint air and ground forces in support of direct action, counter-terrorism, foreign internal defense, humanitarian assistance, special reconnaissance, austere airfield, and combat search and rescue missions.

CCT's motto, "First There," reaffirms the Combat Controller's commitment to undertaking the most dangerous missions behind enemy lines by leading the way for other forces to follow.

They deploy with air and ground forces in support of direct action, such as counter-terrorism, foreign internal defense, humanitarian assistance, and combat search and rescue.

In the three-week course the trainees learn basic parachuting skills required to infiltrate an objective area by static line airdrop.

Instruction includes principles, procedures, equipment and techniques that enable individuals to survive, regardless of climatic conditions or unfriendly environments, and return alive.

Graduates of Combat Control school are awarded their 3-skill level (apprentice) on their Air Force Specialty Code, scarlet beret and CCT flash.

Army Military Free Fall Parachutist School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona for five weeks.

[2][6] They also attend Air Force Combat Diver School which is hosted at the Navy Diving and Salvage Training Center, Naval Support Activity Panama City, Florida.

[2] United States Army pathfinders originated in 1943 during World War II out of need for accurate airdrops after several mishaps occurred in the airborne assault on the Sicilian city of Gela during the allied invasion of Sicily.

[9] Undeterred by the flawed airdrop, the paratroopers were still able to hinder the German counterattack to allow for the allies' amphibious assault to gain a foothold on the beach.

These pathfinders preceded main assault forces into objective areas and drop zones in teams to provide weather information and visual guidance to inbound aircraft through the use of high-powered lights, flares and smoke pots, burning buckets of gas-soaked sand and the Eureka beacon.

During the Normandy invasion pathfinders jumped in prior to the main airborne assault force and guided 13,000 paratroopers to their designated drop zones.

Pathfinders were separate teams of "advance men" who jumped in ahead of main forces to set up beacons and other guides to incoming aircraft.

With fragments of practical knowledge from the British Airborne, company commander Captain Howland and his XO 1st Lt. Fred E. Perry worked hard to develop usable techniques.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, amidst the Quebec Conference in August 1943, was impressed by British General Orde Wingate's account of what could be accomplished in Burma with proper air support.

[19] In three months, 600 sorties by Dakota transport aircraft transferred 9,000 troops, 1,300 pack animals and 245 tons of supplies to landing zones across Burma.

[20] The Senior non-commissioned officer of this founding cadre was MSgt "Bull" Benini, he took the lead in establishing the team's new tactics, procedures, organization, and logistics requirements.

In August 1953 the 10th Special Forces Group refused to allow CCTs to join in their joint tactical missions held at Dobbins AFB, Georgia.

[22] Beginning at least as early as July 1964, the absence of a close air support control system caused a variety of enterprising individuals to improvise procedures for marking bombing targets.

[33] Airman 2nd Class Andre R. Guillet, a "Butterfly" forward air controller, was listed as MIA on 18 May 1966 when the O-1 Bird Dog he and pilot Captain Lee Dufford Harley were in was shot down over Laos.

[34][35] As a result of the Iran hostage crisis, US President Jimmy Carter ordered a rescue mission, code named Operation Eagle Claw, to retrieve the 52 diplomats held captive at the embassy of the United States, Tehran.

Three weeks prior to the operation, Air Force CCT Major John T. Carney Jr. was flown in by Twin Otter to Desert One, a staging area in the South Khorasan Province of Iran, near Tabas for a clandestine survey of an airstrip.

[36][a] Operation Eagle Claw commenced on 24 April 1980 but encountered many obstacles due to technical issues and weather which led to an accident that killed 8 service members.

[38] Three years later, Carney, now a lieutenant colonel, was again picked for a high-risk, clandestine, special operation mission two days in advance of the US-led invasion of Grenada.

Carey was the ranking officer of a team of Air Force Combat Controllers and Navy SEALs tasked with conducting a reconnaissance of a new airport under construction at Point Salines on the southwestern tip of the Eastern Caribbean island.

On 23 Oct. 1983, a nighttime parachute rendezvous of the SEALs with the four controllers waiting aboard the USS Clifton Sprague off the Grenada coast went awry in bad weather.

[42] As a result of their efforts, the team leader of the Combat Controllers, Chief Master Sergeant Tony Travis, was later recognized as one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people of 2010.

[45] The airmen walked for 24 hours at a time in three person groups each carrying 50 lb ruck sacks; by the end of the trip the average airman had marched 144 miles.

In 2012 Men's Health magazine featured an article titled The Special Operators you've never heard of where the author commented on the lack of public knowledge regarding Combat Controllers, "Let us face reality: the Navy SEALs get all the ink, the Army Rangers all the glory, the Marine Recons all the babes.

"[65] In author Marko Kloos' Frontlines series of military science fiction books, the protagonist is a combat controller specializing in providing ground troops with space-based air support.