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The 435th Security Forces Squadron (435th SFS) is a United States Air Force unit capable of overland airlift, air assault, or airborne insertion into crisis situations. The unit incorporates more than 13 different specialities including people with civil engineering, medical, intelligence, investigative, fuels, logistics, personnel and security skills.
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The squadron was activated at The USAF's Sembach Annex (the former Sembach Air Base), Germany, on 26 February 1999.
Deployment History
The 786 SFS as part of the 86th Contingency Response Group (86 CRG) deployed to Tirana Albania, on April 4, 1999, as the lead element of the U.S. Humanitarian Relief Force Operation Shining Hope/Operation Sustain Hope to distribute rations and water. Operation Shining/Sustain Hope is the U.S. humanitarian effort to bring in food, water, medicine and relief supplies for the refugees fleeing from the Former Republic of Yugoslavia into Albania and Macedonia.
United States assistance began April 5, when an initial team of 40 airmen from the 86 CRG left for Tirana. The team was sent in to establish a base camp near a Tirana airfield and prepare it for the rest of the relief force, which would flow in afterward. The 786 SFS security team joined colleagues from the 86th Air Mobility Squadron (86 AMS) members who were already in Albania as part of an 86 CRG deployment to Tirana, Albania, supporting humanitarian operations to relieve Kosovar Albanian refugees in Albania. The 786 SFS provides force protection in the opening stages of a deployment and also provides protection for any follow-on forces. The 86 AMS provides airfield command and control, loads and unloads aircraft and essentially sets up an aerial port where none existed. This was the group's second contingency deployment. Besides the CRG, Ramstein Air Base also sent representatives from the 86th Civil Engineer Squadron, 86th Medical Group, 86th Airlift Wing Public Affairs, 86th Transportation Squadron, 86th Material Maintenance Squadron, 86th Security Forces Squadron, 86th Services Squadron, 86th Financial Management and the 786th Civil Engineer Squadron.
In March 2003 the 786 SFS participated in a combat parachute drop into Bashur Airfield in conjunction with the 173rd Airborne Brigade to open up the northern front in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The 786 SFS is the first conventional Air Force unit to participate in a combat parachute airborne jump.
The 786 SFS also trains all USAFE security forces units in Combat Skills at the USAFE Regional Training Center at Sembach Air Base, Germany - Exercise Creek Defender. Included are subjects such as Live Fire, Convoy Security, Patrolling, Air Base Defense, Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) and a host of other skills during a 15-day course.
Lineage and assignments
The 786 SFS falls under the 435 CRG (formerly 86 CRG) of the 435th Air Ground Operations Wing.