Tactical Air Defense Controller

Ran the air defense fight from a radar scope. Advised on the employment of battle management assets, activated and deployed those systems, and controlled defensive counter air, offensive counter air, and armed interdiction flights — deciding which fighters went after which threat, and keeping the airspace over the MAGTF from becoming a hazard to the people underneath it.

The Story

For decades the Corps kept air defense and air support as two separate enlisted lanes, and the two shops sat in different buildings solving halves of the same problem — one watching for what was coming in, the other pushing what was going out. Force Design 2030 decided that split was a luxury. The merger did not kill the work; it doubled the job description and handed it to one Marine.