Retired Air Force combat controller coaches next generation of special warfare candidates
Veteran with 26 years in special operations now mentors recruits facing a 10% pass rate
KENTUCKY (WXIX) - Retired Chief Master Sergeant Aaron May spent nearly 30 years in special operations with the 123rd Airlift Wing of the Kentucky National Guard and the U.S. Air Force. Now he is passing those front-line lessons to the next class of potential warriors.
May meets with recruits twice a month, tracking their progress through one of the military’s most demanding pipelines. Only about 10% of candidates make it through Air Force Special Warfare training.
‘Flipping the switch’
“I call it flipping the switch,” May said. “You finally reach a point where you can either flip it and push yourself harder, or you don’t know how to turn it on. But once they start to realize it, it’s amazing what you can accomplish.”
May said he wants recruits to understand what is at stake.
“I want them to realize this is an opportunity that not a lot of people get,” he said.
A career built on service
May’s drive to serve began before he ever entered a recruiter’s office. “I grew up with my grandfather as a mentor and hearing his story,” he said. “So I grew up just wanting to serve my country.”
He spent 26 years as a combat controller, completing 12 deployments across Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. His missions included airfield seizures alongside Army Ranger battalions. During one mission, after his team’s helicopter went down, May repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire during a 13-hour ground battle to protect his teammates. All of them made it out.
Doubted from the start
May said skepticism followed him from his first visit to a recruiter.
“You would go to the recruiter’s office and they would say, ‘Well, no one graduates,’” he said.
That doubt became fuel. “My saying throughout my whole career was — watch me,” May said. “Watch me go do it. Even when I got to the selection course, people would say stuff, and I was still like, watch me get through this. And you do. You do.”
May retired in 2020. At his retirement ceremony, Captain Russ LeMay said: “Aaron May is a man who is always going to do the right thing — and has inspired a generation of us to follow his example.”' Well
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