Myself being a TACP, you graduate on the conventional side of the house, and then can try out for the SOF side of the house.  We have guys that are assigned to the (real) SF Groups, and are also within 75th Ranger Regiment.  Due to the high demand for JTACs, you can also simply get tasked to be aligned with a SOF unit in your AO even though not a "SOF TACP".

Our last fallen TACP was a Regiment TACP.  He was a 100% full time SOF TACP.  

http://sofrep.com/tacp/

Even though none of those are pretty much infantry?

Along with their security elements of marines, seals, rangers, cag dudes, or green berets.

Infantry is a job assignment, not a training school. If Air Force Security Forces went through an infantry school, they would still not be infantry,  Because... they AREN'T infantry.  I can't fathom why this confuses people so much.

Guarding a gate for eight hours a day leaves a lot of time for gym.

There was some dumb stuff in the Corps, but active duty Air Force was light PHD level DERP.  Holy shit, I saw some dumb stuff.  

I played the dumb jarhead role a lot on active duty.  It insulated me from some serious stupidity.  "Sgt. C was a Marine, he was never on active duty in the AF sir. "

I never once gave a post briefing my entire time on flight, nor did I ever ask for one..  That had to be one of the dumbest things I had ever heard of.  

"You wanna know how far my rifle shoots sir, run out that away a bit and Ill tell you to stop and see if I can hit you."

That stuff did not have shit to do with how well you understood your post your responsibilities as a sentry, or how you would fight your post if needed.

IIRC the "demand" for TACPs is a forced requirement, is it not?

Mr. President, there are one or two points I'd like to make, if I may.

That is your view.  It was not how we looked at it.  We were all grunts, whether we were patrolling the NAVMAG or humping the hills of South Korea for Team Spirit.  You were an infantryman and this was an infantrymans job.  I carried the same MOS, shouldered the same rifle, and wore the same deuce gear.

If there's one thing in the 15 years I've been in the Security Forces I hate is when some fucking water head says they're infantry.  The fuck I am.  Yes, I was a mortar man, a MK-19 gunner, humped a 60, did ruck marches over more hills than I can count in Korea, did battle drills and MOUT shit until I did it in my sleep, I am not an infantryman.  I still worked gates, wrote tickets, cleared bar fights, walked flight lines etc.  Speaking for myself, I am a cop.  A military cop, not a grunt.  

I really hate some of the dumb fucks in my career field who feel they have to make more out of the job than it really is.  Yes, it sucks to walk fence lines, flight lines and check ID's at the gate.  It's an important job, perhaps not the most glamorous but it still needs to get done and being a wanker doesn't make it easier on the rest of us.

I remember some grunts passing my post one day and they asked what I was doing there.  I explained my duties and one of the guys said, "Fuck man, that sucks."  I'll take that, at least that guy had the right to say whatever he wanted, it's the non-combat arms guys who always seem to talk the most shit.  But what I tell most of those slack jaws, "You could have joined the Air Force too, but either you wanted a challenge or your ASVAB scores prevented it, that said, my A/C is humming along nicely."  

+1000000  

You continue to confuse me.

Infantry is indeed a job.

Nobody in this thread has said otherwise.  A Marine Security Guard is not an Infantrymen, regardless of whether he used to be, or went to an infantry school - not more than some guy who went to a police academy is a police officer.  UNLESS HE IS ONE!  You seem to be arguing for the sake of arguing.

Non infantry personnel assigned to an infantry unit do not magically become infantry.  They are usually there expressly because they offer other skills to augment.  It's not a dick measuring contest, it's a job description.

If you were infantry than you were infantry. Doesn't matter if you pulled gate guard, did admin duty or remf shit or whatever.

If you're not infantry, you're a pogue. And this is a safe place for Pogues bro.

Okey dokey.

Again, define infantry.  Not Army Infantry, not Marine Infantry, but just Infantry.  As I said, Websters defines it as a "soldier who fights on foot".  Look it up.  By the Army' definition, they are not Infantry and by a Marines definition, they are not infantry, more so because both types view that particular career and mission through their own biased filters.  I was a Marine Infantryman NCO, and I was an Air Force Cop NCO, and you will never hear me say that the Security Forces troops were the equivalent of Marine or Army Infantry.  

However, they are the largest ground combat element of the Air Force, responsible for defending an air base from ground attack.  They are not going to do that from a saddle, hence they are not cavalry, they will probably not do it from helicopters, hence they are not air assault.  They will likely repel an aggressive force by fighting from fixed prepared and/hasty positions, and through the use of light vehicles in mobile or fixed positions with mortars, machine guns, rifles, grenades and mine.  How else would you define that behavior?  That is Infantry.  A soft soap ,lite beer, Ill only have a salad, flip flop, air conditioning only type of infantry, to be sure, but Infantry nonetheless.  

Notice how you are focused on the defense of a fixed position. Its called a clue.

Infantry shoot, move, communicate, and kill; offensively and if need be, defend.  AF defends, DefensorFortis (SIC).

Your worldview through an Army filter.  Most Marines I know and served with will argue unitl blue that an 03XX MSG is an infantryman, regardless of his assignment.  At no time when I was assigned to non-infantry unit did I ever consider myself anything other than an 0311, a grunt.   Nor do I recall any of my leadership holding a different view.

Anyone assigned an 03 MOS is indeed an infantrymen.  Hence, the MOS.  I never said, nor did I even suggest, otherwise.  That doesn't mean they are always in an infantry job.  You seem to enjoy strawman arguments.  If a MSG is an infantryman by MOS, then his is one due to MOS, not due to being a MSG.  But, I think the MSG folks have their own MOS these days.

And you dont think that you will not move, shoot, and communicate during an attack on you installation?  When you were in Korea, did you not train to do exactly those things?         Again, I am not making the claim that the AF Cop mission is the same as the Army Infantry mission, or the Marine Infantry mission (I did notice the lack of ships and amtracks when I joined the Air Force) however, we are still the ground combat element of the Air Force, and we are trained to fight as infantry should the need arise.  The Air Force is not doing enough to drive home how important the career field is today.  We are more likely to suffer losses on the ground from a attacking force than we are in the air.  

This was a monster discussion when I attended 7 level in 02, the need for us to improve our ground combat skills, and push more focus in that direction.  My observation over the last 9 years is that someone took their eye off the ball.

Thank you for your service. You have a badass job.

Pretty fucking close.  AF security forces are about as much like Infantry as Infantry is to aviation.  

I do not care what their faggot recruiters tell them, they are AF and their job will never be Infantry.  Unless you're some special snowflake who thinks that everyone with a uniform and a rifle is Infantry... In which case, I respectful request that you imbibe copious amounts of antifreeze and jump off an overpass.

OP - tell your dude I said he's a jizzbag for attempting to compare himself to the Infantry.  If bukkake and rain were basically the same thing they would have the same name.

Ive had Marine Clerks tell me all Marines are Riflemen.....

should be a sigline

I have two experiences with AF SF.

The first was a Sergeant in a police department I worked for in the mid 90's. He regaled people with stories of his time in. Said he had kept his entire set of stuff from his time as AF SWAT. He could recite all his general orders, including the classified one.

Then, one day, he decided he didn't want a piece of mail going, so he chased down the mail truck and retrieved it at gunpoint. Later, after he was fired, they found he had exceptionally embellished his .mil career and was diddling a 17 year old while on duty.

The second was when the state air national guard base switched from state military police to contract security for security stuff. I decided to hop on because reading the contract, it sounded SWEET.

Day one, a 22 year old A1C used knife hands in my face, tells me that I will respect him, he is a real police officer, and we guards will salute the Security Forces.

Then, in the class we had to take from them, they tell us they can arrest anyone, but they choose to let the locals decide what to do with them. "Don't be let down if you arrest someone for drunk and disorderly and the County decides to turn them loose. It happens".

I'll be honest with you. I've been around a lot of different types of officials in my life. I have never, ever seen anything like the Air Force Security Forces people I saw at that base. Read stories of pilots and old Air Police going round and round, but thought those were isolated incidents.

Man, they do love some Guard Mount, though.

A lot of the culture, I couldn't understand. Having worked as a civilian police officer, I wasn't used to being given my gun and radio through a tiny hole in a concrete wall. Especially considering I typically had been standing at the door on the opposite side of that hole just moments prior.

Can I just have my guns now?

No.

Can I just take them home?

No.

Standing at attention and parade rest to do a shift brief. I was making around $9-ish an hour. Today is RAMS day. What are we looking for? We can't tell you. Do you even know? We can't tell you.

I was fat, and wanted to lose weight. We got banned from their running track and gym, they just didn't want us in there.

I wanted to use the range. Nope.

I lasted about two weeks. (shrugs)  Saddle for every horse. Mine wasn't af blue, I guess.

As I have said, when I was on active duty, MSG duties were only given to those who had graduated from Infantry Training School, as it was an Infantry JOB, it was fundamentally (although yes, there was much more to it overseas)not much different than area guard and the stuff you needed to know came from Infantry School.  Should the facility come under attack you were expected to fight as infantry, meaning forming into fire teams, squads, platoons, etc. weapons employment, squad and fireteam movement, mission of each person on the fire team, Team leader, Automatic Rifleman, Asst. Auto Rifleman, Rifleman, etc.  hand and arm signals, all the stuff that gets beat into your head at ITS or SOI or whatever the hell it is called now.

We secured the NAVMAG in much the same manner as we were taught to secure a patrol base.  We conducted security patrols straight from the manual, set up op/lp's like the book, etc.  

Things did start becoming more specialized as incidents around the world cost us the lives of many Marines, but the draw and focus was still on the basic skill sets of the infantry.  When I was leaving active duty, as a Corporal I had the options of Marine Barracks Holy Loch Scotland ( I still kick myself in the ass for that one) or FAST Company East or West Coast, only the detailers had no idea what the hell a FAST company was.  Really kicked myself later when I learned what their mission was.  Marine Barracks was an infantry assignment.

In short, the only guys who did MSG or Barracks duty were grunts.

Should have waited off post for him and then fucked him up....

All Marines are trained as a rifleman, meaning every Marine is trained to engage the enemy out ot 500 meters with iron sights, make dope changes to their rifles to hit targets at varied ranges, read the wind, call and mark their shots, etc. etc.  That is a rifleman, yes.  Methinks you are equating rifleman to infantryman.  That is not the case.  The Corps trains everyone to be a rifleman so that if needed, they can be pressed in to the job of an infantryman (as Marines have done in wartime, cooks, etc. forming into units  and attacking enemy positions or repelling enemy assaults), and fight or defend as the mission dictates.  

Your A1C needed his fuckin ass beat.  A good NCO would have taken care of his ass real quick.  Hey, we had a kid get high on post and do donuts in a brand new truck with such force that he threw his M-16A2 out of the passenger side window through the glass, and had no clue where the fuck it was.  He was not a cop though, he was an augmentee, from the Med Squadron, I think.  Not as bad though as the kid I encountered who was getting booted from the AF for mental issues, after having obtained a waiver to enlist over the time he spent in the looney bin when he was 16.  

Back in  the day Security Police babysat the nuclear weapon storage areas, nuclear loaded alert aircraft and access to the flight line.  You had to have a top secret security clearance.  In Europe we had  the M-60 and 203.  In Thailand we had 81mm mortars and got to drive around in 113's with M19's mounted.  Not claims to being infantry but mall cop is ridiculous.

Sadly, the supervision wasn't a great deal less motivated in that manner than this Airman was.  And, for the record, I don't think he needed his ass beat. He got that attitude from somewhere, and more than one person had to tolerate it for it to thrive.

The person in charge of them had a license plate that read 'CHIEF' on his personal vehicle.

Don't get me wrong; I was the fish out of water. They all had some kinda groupthink going for them, and it worked for them. I've just been both a policeman and a security guard, I had no illusions about what I was doing there. There was no policing to be done. Zero.

The contract (I had a copy) said we were to have police powers, were supposed to do entry control and law enforcement duties, and basically free the SF cadre up to do other stuff. First week they told us we could keep our rank structure, but that it had no bearing there. So, we had responsibility for our subordinates (hiring/training/scheduling/taking it in the ass if they messed up), but no authority. We would NOT be doing any law enforcement work, and we would simply man a gate.

I noticed their rifles all were grr'd up in the same place. Later on, I saw that somehow, they had figured out how to wedge their M4 rifles into their trucks' Remington 870 shotgun rack. There was just a lot of stuff I couldn't square up, so once I made sure they had a replacement for me, I punched out. Too bad, because I really was looking forward to doing that job.

It's probanly the accent.

Someone trolled you retards into a tank fight.  

MSG has never been a 03 only program; I think you are confusing MSG with entry level MCSF who are all 03s.  

Historically only 20 percent of MSGs have been combat arms Marines and their regional commanders are almost all non-combat arms officers

Rifleman is a billet within the current infantry make up and the "Every Marine a Rifleman" comes from the ability to press all Marines into a provisional rifleman role because of the entry level accessions pipeline were all officers go through 6 months of infantry training and all enlisted go through a little under a month of infantry training.

A good rule of thumb if you  have to say I am the  "Of anything" you are not it.  

A case in point if they say I went to the "Harvard of " or I am the "infantry of" than no did not and no you are not.

Patrolling, ambushes, VCP, ECPs etc are security/defensive functions they are not what defines modern infantry.  My 08s did all those things but they were not infantry.  When we did a provisional infantry mission in Iraq we expanded to offensive operations but they were still Artillerymen doing a provisional infantry mission and not infantrymen

Marine Corps doesn't do it like that anymore.

ETA all this shit.

If you're pretty much Infantry you're not Infantry.

That's like saying because I am an Infantryman and a SUAS Operator I'm pretty much a pilot. Wait, but I conduct Pre-flight, Flight Operations, and Landing operations. That's a pilot right?

STFU, SF are military Police. Who guard.

ETA2:

AF SF are not infantry,  but they do similar jobs,  just like someone can cook but that doesn't mean they are a cook.  If you want a good example of what they are good at,  look at the may attack on Bagram,  AF were in charge of security there,  something like 13 insurgents attacked with MG RPGs suicide vests.  SF saw them coming and wiped them out,  (yes eventually called in some apaches for one or two last hold outs).

In comparison look at the attack on camp bastion,  Marine FOB, 6 harriers destroyed before anyone knew the 8 insurgents were inside, a couple Marines dead including the CO.

AF SF are the best in the world at what they do,  aggressively defend a piece of real-estate.  Look at what they did during the yet offensive too.  Remember they were also designed to stop spetznas in Europe from messing with our airbases there.

Finally look up Lt Joeseph Helton if you want an example of a great defender.

In pigtails, with lipstick and diamond earrings in to go with their tac vests and M4s. Even though I appreciated the random TDY vehicle stop turned bootycall, it all seemed really unprofessional from a female infantry standpoint.

"The raid was a complex and coordinated assault by 19 Taliban fighters dressed in United States Army uniforms using several types of weapons which took place on the eastern side of Camp Bastion near to the USMC aircraft hangars at 22:00 local time (17:30 GMT). The assault team penetrated the perimeter of the camp, guarded by troops from Tonga, and separated into three teams to carry out the attack"

I am not a Marine but, know your facts.

Sounds like the attack on bagram,  was wrong on the number of insurgents,  but just because they hired some TCNs to protect them. They were still in charge of thier own defense

I'm guessing the same thing.

AF SF are not infantry,  but they do similar jobs,  just like someone can cook but that doesn't mean they are a cook.  If you want a good example of what they are good at,  look at the may attack on Bagram,  AF were in charge of security there,  something like 13 insurgents attacked with MG RPGs suicide vests.  SF saw them coming and wiped them out,  (yes eventually called in some apaches for one or two last hold outs).

In comparison look at the attack on camp bastion,  Marine FOB, 6 harriers destroyed before anyone knew the 19 insurgents were inside, a couple Marines dead including the CO.

AF SF are the best in the world at what they do,  aggressively defend a piece of real-estate.  Look at what they did during the yet offensive too.  Remember they were also designed to stop spetznas in Europe from messing with our airbases there.

Finally look up Lt Joeseph Helton if you want an example of a great defender.

edited for accuracy

Next thing you're going to tell me is that if AF SF were at COP Keating it wouldn't have been overrun.

Or if the same tactics used at Bastion were used at Bagram that they'd have wiped them all out with minimal loss of life.

Why would they have used the same tactics as bastion?  That is my argument,  AF SF aren't some super chuck Norris fighters,  they use the right TTPs,  that is their strength.