A short video of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in the normally unremarkable act of climbing a set of stairs launched a wave of internet speculation this week when it also captured two armed guards who looked like they might be assigned to him.
Both wore Air Force flight suits, carried M-4-style rifles with tactical vests — a rarely-seen level of firepower on civilian VIP flights — and both were women.
Speculation on the pair ranged from incorrect to ridiculously incorrect. Posters on social media immediately labeled the pair as everything from secret Delta Force operators to undeserving “DEI recruits.”
One internet outlet even called them “Hegseth’s Heavily-Armed Female Bodyguards.”
Some even compared the two to the ornamental “Amazon” guards once favored by Muammar Gaddafi.
A few internet sleuths got closer to the truth, assuming they were Phoenix-Raven troops, the Air Force’s specially-trained security forces squads that fly on large transport aircraft like C-17s and C-130s when they travel to unsecure airbases (Ravens were aboard nearly every flight out of Kabul during the 2021 airlift).
It will shock you to learn that in each of those case, someone on the internet was wrong.
In fact, the two women were members of a small team from the 55th Security Forces Squadron which is assigned to guard not Hegseth, but the plane he was flying on, the Air Force’s secret E-4B “Doomsday” plane, otherwise known as the National Airborne Operations Center, or NAOC.
The security detail, which is specially selected from Air Force security forces at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, flies with the plane everywhere it goes. The rifles and combat gear, an Offutt spokesperson told Task & Purpose, are “standard protocol” for the team.
They were not, the spokesperson said, assigned to guard Hegseth, but rather flew with the plane to Andrews to pick him up for the trip.
Flying ‘Doomsday’ machine
The E-4B is not one of the Air Force’s “normal” VIP transport planes flown by the 89th Airlift Wing, which are based at Andrews and are generally painted light blue and white. The 89th planes — which include the converted 747s that serve as Air Force One — appear on television regularly carrying a wide range of government VIPs, with very few if any obvious security guards around them.
Not so for the E-4B Nightwatch, which is an all-business warplane, built for the President and Secretary of Defense to carry out war plans during major attacks.
The plane is not based at Andrews but at Offutt, which is also home to U.S. Strategic Command — the military’s nuclear war planners — and the 55th Air Wing, which flies a roster of secret spy planes from the base. And though based in Nebraska, the E-4B actually operates under the Eighth Air Force at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, the operational command that oversees all of America’s nuclear and strategic bombers.
In other words, the NAOC is nobody’s VIP shuttle (though to unfamiliar eyes, its white paint job, blue stripe, and similar-scripted “United States of America” on its fuselage might hold a passing resemblance to Air Force One).
Not surprisingly, where the NAOC goes, so goes the 55th’s security team, according to Kris Pierce, the Chief of Public Affairs at Offutt.
“The two individuals shown in the photo and video are full-time members assigned specifically to the NAOC Security team,” Pierce told Task & Purpose in an email response to questions on the guards. Piece declined to identify the two women, but said both held the rank of senior airman. “They serve as fly-away security and are officially designated as part of the aircrew. When supporting an overseas mission involving the Secretary of Defense, they closely coordinate with the SecDef’s security team.”
The weapons and kit the two carried may have looked excessive on the ceremony-heavy Andrews flightline, but are about what you might expect for guarding a plane at the heart of America’s nuclear arsenal.
“Carrying the M4 and M18 is standard protocol,” said Pierce “This is part of their authorized lethal loadout and aligns with standing orders for personnel, especially when operating in official capacities such as deployments or movements during missions. There has been no recent change in policy or procedure regarding their weapons posture.”
The 55th’s NAOC team is full-time at Offutt, and members must both volunteer and undergo a selection process.
“Becoming a member of NAOC Security is a highly selective and competitive process,” said Pierce. “Once selected, their training intensifies with aircraft-specific instruction designed to build and sustain the specialized skills required for the mission.”
In subsequent stops on his trip in Asia, Hegseth met reporters within a few yards of the E-4B several times to address his use last month of Signal to distribute strike plans against Yemen on a chat group. During those press conferences, several different sets of NAOC guards are visible in the background flanking the plane’s steps, as the two guards did at Andrews.
In a statement to Task & Purpose, the 55th squadron commander confirmed it was his troops that had set the internet off.
“The two Senior Airmen [seen Monday] are among the best of the best from 55 SFS’ Recon Raiders, Air Combat Command, and across USAF Security Forces,” said Lt. Col. Andrew Ferguson. “Only the most professional, most competent, and most lethal members from my squadron get the opportunity to serve on the NAOC Security team. I’ve personally flown with most if not all our NAOC Security team members on several overseas missions including one of the two pictured. I vouch for my NAOC Security team.”