Personnel Recovery:
Strategic Importance and Impact
This article is a treatise on personnel recovery (PR) at the strategic level of war, explaining the mission by reviewing its standing within the national security strategy, the national military strategy, and the guiding words of President Barack Obama. It explains current PR policy as laid out in National Security Presidential Directive 12 and shows how the Department of Defense (DOD) and the military services have responded in an ever-dangerous world. Furthermore, the article presents a series of vignettes stretching from World War II to the recent military operation in Libya, pointing out how every American president has had to deal with PR. It also highlights how our PR needs and capabilities have developed, how PR can affect the accomplishment of operational missions, how it can affect national will, and how it has become a moral imperative. Demonstrating the evolution of our PR community from disparate service-oriented forces to a larger DOD-wide community, this study traces the development of the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency to its current status as a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Controlled Activity with a broad operational-support mission. It then identifies the challenges ahead and suggests discussions and debates that will determine those actions necessary to allow the DOD to better support our chiefs of missions across the globe—the people responsible for protecting Americans worldwide. Lastly, the article concludes with the sage words of President Obama: “America’s greatest asset is its people.”