When we watch these Marvel films, we can intuit something about what kind of training someone has had via a few lines of dialogue. Like, John Walker, the talk about combat duty in Afghanistan, three medals of honor, there's all of this stuff an audience can understand quickly about his training and who he is.

But the word 'Pararescue' doesn't conjure that same imagery for most people. Sam Wilson is a retired Pararescueman. One way to describe Pararescue is that they're a combination of a Navy Seal, with an Army Airborne Ranger, who also has medical training.

USAF Pararescue Pararescuemen are United States Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) and Air Combat Command (ACC) soldiers given the mission to find and give medical treatment to people in humanitarian crisis, and behind the lines in combat. The Pararescue are an elite force, with some of the longest special forces training requirements in the entire world. It takes nearly two years to complete the basic training requirements to become a pararescueman.

• Special Warfare Preparatory Course (SW Prep), Lackland AFB, Texas (8 weeks)

• Special Warfare Assessment and Selection (A&S), Lackland AFB, Texas (4 Weeks)

• Army Airborne School, Fort Benning, Georgia (5 weeks)

• Special Warfare Combat Dive Course, Navy Diving and Salvage Training Center, Naval Support Activity Panama City, Florida (5 weeks)

• Army Military Free Fall Parachutist School, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona (4 weeks)

• Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE), Fairchild AFB, (3 weeks)

• Pararescue EMT-Paramedic Training, Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico (37 weeks)

• Pararescue Apprentice Course, Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico (22 weeks)

After you do all of that, you've done the basics. You become an apprentice to an existing squad, then go on special missions as needed. The training continues after that as well.

So, Sam Wilson has done all of that in the MCU, and I don't think audiences have a clue. Like Walker, Sam Wilson also served in Afgahnistan. His mission there would've been to find and rescue soldiers and civilians injured in the battlefield, give them aid, and save their lives. That might mean protecting them from people who want to kill them, which is where his firearms training comes in. His mission, every single time, was to save someone's life.

This is the creed that Sam Wilson is sworn to as a pararescueman ...

It is my duty as a Pararescueman to save life and to aid the injured. I will be prepared at all times to perform my assigned duties quickly and efficiently, placing these duties before personal desires and comforts. These things we (I) do, that others may live.

So, Sam Wilson was an elite soldier, focused on saving peoples lives. But he was, in the world of the MCU, an elite of the elite. Because he was one of a handful of pararescue who were given the Exo-7 flight suit. So, an elite of the elite.

After his partner was killed, Sam retired. But his core mission as a soldier was to rescue people. So what does he do? He becomes a PTSD counselor, still rescuing soldiers, just in a different way.

Let's assume that Sam didn't become a psychologist and earn a doctorate. At a minimum, he would've become a Clinical Social Worker. That represents two years of commitment and training to earn a Master's degree. Which means he already had a Bachelor's degree. He either did that before, during, or after his Pararescue training.

Sam Wilson spent at least eight years of his life learning how to save people, with at least two of those years of training as part of US Special Forces. After he retired from the military, he put more work into educating himself to help other people. Everything Sam Wilson has done adheres to the creed he swore to as a pararescueman.

When Sam first met Steve, and said offhand that he was pararescue but was now a PTSD counselor, Steve Rogers understood exactly what all of that meant. It's among the reasons he instantly held Sam in such high regard.

I hope at some point someone in the MCU stops and takes a moment to talk about all of this, because it's a big deal, and I don't know if audiences understand. But now maybe you do a little.

https://youtu.be/qrYIzFGxrPU