Take Charge and Move Out: The Founding Fathers of TACAMO

The birth of the US Navy’s “Take Charge and Move Out” (TACAMO) mission which provides essential airborne communications to the US nuclear deterrence forces.

The US Navy’s “Take Charge and Move Out” (TACAMO) mission provides essential airborne communications to the US nuclear deterrence forces. Today it is a thriving community, respected by the Navy and the US strategic defense forces. But it wasn’t always so. Despite the enormous importance of the mission, for the first decade of their existence, the TACAMO squadrons did not provide a viable career path for officers, instead being a “one and done” tour for the junior officers who found themselves unluckily so assigned. A second tour in the squadrons was considered to be professional suicide. But in 1975, inspired by a significant commanding officer, a handful of lieutenants put their faith in a community that did not yet exist, betting their careers on that second tour. From their faith and courage was born the TACAMO community. This is the story of the birth of TACAMO, in the words of those who built the community from scratch.