The United States has further strengthened the presence in Iraq of a select group of operators little known to the public opinion called "Phoenix Ravens". They are a highly trained unit with a single task: to create a defensive perimeter and protect, at all costs, every type of aircraft with an American flag.
Born in the 1997, the program Phoenix Raven provides a specialized force capable of providing protection for US aircraft against all types of enemies during an airlift: from terrorist groups to organized crime, from local militias to the desperate population that has just experienced a natural disaster. THE Phoenix Ravens they are considered the only defense that stands between these threats and a large, expensive and vulnerable winged target with an American flag on its tail.
Just to give an example. Contrary to what one might think, it is not the American Secret Services that protect Air Force One, but i Phoenix Ravens. Usually integrated with the mission crew, they operate to ensure the safety of the aircraft in many ways: from intelligence to escape plans, from landing to fire power in the event of unforeseen circumstances. The whole force Ravens is based on 200 operators.
In the last twenty years only 2000 soldiers have passed the selection tests. A relatively small number considering the multiple theaters in which the United States is engaged.
The largest number of Phoenix Ravens it is found in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in some countries of Africa and South America. The missions of the Phoenix Ravens they are classified as Seal and Delta. Their use in a battlefield has never been documented, nor is there evidence that they can prove their decisive involvement in some high-risk operating theaters. But we know that they are experts in the insurrectional counteroffensive and in the unconventional guerrilla.
Soldiers who pass the course, from all branches of the armed forces, receive a number. The latter indicates the order in which the operator was accepted into the group: the lower the number, the greater the respect received among all American soldiers. The already high capacity of the Phoenix Ravens they were further strengthened after the September 11 attacks. The units have been transformed to all effects into small nuclei of fire capable of containing an enemy offensive.
As is the case with the Seal (the thought goes, for example, to the exoskeletons tested in Afghanistan), even the operators of the Phoenix Ravens receive classified equipment. Otherwise, their small number and their incredible capacity for fire would not be explained, believed to be able to saturate an area with a high number of hostiles. Each team Phoenix standard is made up of four operators.
They add from the Air Force: "Every time you see one of our planes on TV in somewhere on the planet, the Phoenix".
