#150 Combat Search & Rescue: HH-60 Pave Hawk Into a Firefight to Save 2 Wounded Marines

Today we sit down with an HH-60G Pave Hawk combat search and rescue (CSAR) pilot who flew through some of the worst fighting in Afghanistan, and the single mission that changed how he trains the mind for combat.

John "Rain" Waters talks with retired Lt. Col. John Mangan, a decorated CSAR pilot with more than 200 combat missions who commanded the 33rd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron in Kandahar. They get into the leave-no-one-behind ethos, the honey-buns story that got a grounded rescue bird fueled in a combat zone, the command chaos of Operation Anaconda, why wounded troops died on runways waiting for approval to launch, and the Helmand rescue of two dying Marines that became the basis for his book, The Three Rings Mindset. Along the way, the science of why a trained pilot froze into his habits under fire, and how repetition and purpose beat fear.

John Mangan: www.JohnManganBooks.com

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00:00 Intro

02:39 Growing up around gunships and A-10s

07:28 Pilot training and the barany chair

17:11 Why he chose combat rescue: leave no one behind

24:41 Iceland and the pre-9/11 "end of history" Air Force

33:59 Operation Anaconda and the honey buns fuel story

43:44 How Anaconda became a war-college lesson in failure

47:24 Wounded troops dying while the chain of command froze

49:28 The four motivations behind every warrior

55:35 Manda Bay: the rescue that never launched

1:01:47 Improvising under fire with a broken minigun

1:04:30 Army dust-off vs Air Force combat rescue

1:11:37 The Pave Hawk flying combat at 12,000 hours

1:14:13 Flying into a firefight for two dying Marines

1:36:21 Why a trained pilot flew over the enemy twice

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