Gregory Rockwood
- Actor
Major Gregory "Rocky" Rockwood has served six deployments, three each
in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was one of the crew members awarded the
2004 Mackay Trophy for the "most meritorious flight of the year" by an
Air Force person, persons, or organization. Jolly 11 Flight launched to
rescue a five person crew of a U.S. Army CH-47 Chinook that crashed in
a sandstorm with near zero-visibility. En route to the crash scene,
crews realized their forward looking infra-red and night vision goggles
were ineffective. Despite this handicap the crew of Jolly 11 was able
to locate the survivors. Both aircraft then made near zero-visibility
approaches relying nearly exclusively on the flight engineers and
aerial gunners inputs for precision navigation. Following the
successful survivor contacts and recovery by the Flight's
Pararescuemen, Jolly 11 and Jolly 12 were individually engaged by
separate multiple surface-to-air missiles attacks. Using evasive
maneuvers Jolly 11 evaded two missiles. Both Jolly 11 and Jolly 12
continued to provide support with defensive fire until the formation
was clear of the threat area saving the lives of five U.S. Army
personnel.