The United States Army Pathfinder Course trains military personnel in the U.S. Army and its sister services to set up parachute drop zones and helicopter landing zones for airborne and air assault missions.
The two-week course trains pathfinder candidates to navigate on foot; conduct sling load operations; establish and operate a helicopter landing zone; provide air traffic control (ATC) and navigational assistance to rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft; and establish and operate parachute drop zones (DZs), including computed air release point (CARP) DZs, ground marked release system (GMRS) DZs and Army verbally initiated release system (VIRS) DZs.
All training and airborne operations are conducted in accordance with FM 3-21.220 (Static Line Parachuting Techniques and Training) and FM 3-21.38 (Pathfinder Operations).
For decades, the Army trained Pathfinders at the Pathfinder School at Fort Benning (renamed Fort Moore in 2023). The school was closed after an October 2020 decision to shutter more than 30 schools and courses. A spokesman from the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) said the school was closing to save money and help the Army shift to large-scale combat operations. As of 2023, the Pathfinder Course is conducted by the 101st Airborne Division's Air Assault School at Fort Campbell and by the Army National Guard Warrior Training Center Mobile Training Team at Fort Moore.
Development of the modern U.S. Army pathfinder
Pathfinders make up less than .01% of the Army. Their primary mission is to set up parachute drop zones and helicopter landing zones for airborne and air assault missions.
The Pathfinders were created in World War II after early airborne operations found it too difficult to find drop zones at night and in bad weather, resulting in scattered drops up to seven miles from the target. An idea from the British inspired the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion and 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, to create an elite force to go in before the main assault with visual and electronic signaling devices to guide aircraft to the drop zone and gliders to their landing zones. Their first use in combat was 13 September 1943 during combat jumps into Italy.
WWII-era Pathfinders are most remembered for their jump into Normandy during the invasion of June 6, 1944, when they led Allied forces into Europe. They were employed throughout southern France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, in the course of Allied airborne operations until the end of the war in Europe. They were also used in the Pacific theater with the 11th Airborne Division during the liberation of the Philippines.
The Korean War saw limited use of the Pathfinders by the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team during two combat jumps and operations. The Vietnam War saw the largest use of Pathfinders due to the developments of helicopter insertion and resupply which were pioneered by the 11th Air Assault Division (Test). Nearly every Army aviation battalion had a Pathfinder detachment and deployed them on nearly every mission.
After the Vietnam War, Pathfinders were embedded in the major Airborne units and various combat aviation battalions/groups. The Army National Guard and Army Reserve added Pathfinder platoons during the 1970s and 1980s. Many conducted joint task force missions in Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East.
In the late 1980s through 1990, the Army began closing Pathfinder units, believing their skills could be taught to regular troops at Air Assault School and by people within the unit who were Pathfinder-qualified. Operations during the Panama invasion and the Gulf War showed that Pathfinders were important to airborne success and that the Army needed more of them. The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), which had retained a Pathfinder unit during and after the Vietnam War, expanded its existing company and raised a second in 2005 by converting its long range surveillance detachment (LRSD) into another pathfinder company, giving each of its two aviation brigades a company. The 82nd Airborne Division followed suit by converted its LRSD to a pathfinder company under the 2d Battalion, 82nd Aviation Regiment. Additionally, the 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry) at Fort Drum, New York, and the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii have formed provisional pathfinder companies (e.g., they are not reflected in the units' tables of organization and equipment) and conduct combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pathfinder units today still live by the motto of "First In-Last Out" and wear the Pathfinder Torch.