Introducing: John

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John F. Rondema

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Jul 29, 2011
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It's truly an honor and a privilege to be a member of this organization. I served in U.S. Air Force for 20 years and 24 days (5 Feb 79-28 Feb 99). I was fortunate to have several very good assignments during my career, but my best, by far, was serving as a member of U.S. Special Operations Command from 1 Dec 88-23 May 93 as part of the J2 (Intelligence Directorate).

As an Air Force member, and especially as an IT guy, I wasn't going to have many opportunities to perform my duties in field conditions. But as part of USSOCOM I had the honor of deploying on numerous occasions with U.S. Army Rangers, U.S. Marine Corps Special Operators, and U.S. Navy SEALs, along with some U.S. Air Force Special Ops types. Though I never saw any actual battle, during my time at USSOCOM I was deployed on several occasions, shortly after the start of Desert Shield in Saudi Arabia; I returned to the gulf at the outset of Southern Watch in Kuwait. I participated in exercises at Ft. Bragg (3rd Special Forces Group), Pope Air Force Base, and Salt Lake City; trained Army National Guard and Army Reserve forces on deployable Intell IT systems at various CONUS locales, and had the opportunity to conduct some training at HQ SOUTHCOM, Panama City, Panama, in 1991.

I know that some things have changed at USSOCOM since my departure in 1993 and that the OPSTEMPO now is staggering, but we kept pretty busy during the time I was there as well, from Just Cause - Southern Watch. It was an awesome experience, one I'm very grateful to have had the opportunity to have.

Anyway, I just wanted to find out what's been going on in Special Operations of late and found this forum.

Thanks for your time.

Cheers,

John F. Rondema, TSgt, USAF (Ret)
 
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