Combat Story (Ep 9): Jimmy Settle Air Force PJ | Purple Heart & Air Medal (V) Recipient | Author
About This Episode
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Jimmy Settle is a retired Air Force Pararescueman (“PJ”) credited with saving 38 lives and assisting in saving 28 others in combat, in addition to saves in the Alaskan wilderness.
He racked up over 270 combat search and rescue hours in Afghanistan, where he earned an Air Medal with Valor for his life saving heroics and a Purple Heart after being shot in the head (and returning to combat 24 hours later).
Jimmy catalogues these and other near death experiences in his book, “Never Quit: From Alaska Wilderness Rescues to Afghanistan Firefights as an Elite Special Ops PJ,” where he shares the friendships, hardships, pranks, and events that changed his life, from being an elite athlete competing at the Naval Academy to completing the daunting PJ pipeline to live saving ops in the most austere environments.
Author
Chapters
- 0:00Intro.
- 5:47What is a PJ and the military’s pararescue.
- 13:33Introduced to PJ by Chris Robertson.
- 19:43“Cardiac Event” aka the first (of many) near death experience.
- 27:56“19 year old decision” to leave the Naval Academy after invasive surgery on the heart.
- 30:46The PJ “Pipeline” of elite training, INDOC (80%+ attrition rate), Combat Divers Course, Airborne, Free Fall, SERE, Pararescue EMT and Apprenticeship.
- 48:05“Cones” aka unfortunate trainees going through the pipeline (better than a Toad, not yet a Maroon Beret).
- 50:17Covertly free climbing Fort Benning’s 250’ Jump Towers for a prank.
- 52:48The “Green Feet” image used by PJs, an homage to Vietnam helos.
- 58:13The first time working on a live patient (intubation) in Philadelphia in a paramedic apprentice program.
- 1:05:51The first rescue from an aircraft as a PJ in Alaska at night in the wilderness to help a woman who had an accident with an ATV, chainsaw, and a scalping.
- 1:09:51Another near death experience while training in Alaska’s Cook Inlet at night.
- 1:27:29Supporting Operation Bulldog Bite in Kunar province, Afghanistan in November 2010.
- 1:29:21Another near death experience getting shot in the head.
- 1:36:29Going back into combat 24 hours after being shot in the head to rescue dozens of people.
- 1:48:48Saving two soldiers on a chopper and thinking, “This is my purpose in life.”
- 1:49:17Losing memory after getting shot in the head and how it creeped in “insidiously.”
- 1:53:12Describing the difficulty in transitioning from the service to the civilian world and the loss of identity.
- 1:56:36Living in a car in the Commissary parking lot until a senior enlisted airmen intervened.
- 2:02:06“Without hesitation” would do it again.
