Previously during 1963 and 1964 then Captain Keith R. Grimes organized the first ad-hoc Air Weather Service Unconventional Warfare Detachment at Hurlburt Field, FL, during 1963 and 1964. These few in member numbers special warfare weathermen began deploying to Laos with primary mission training friendly forces to take and report weather observation. It was this small in numbers group of weathermen who worked clandestinely in Laos, under dangerous conditions and on a nearly uninterrupted basis, to establish and maintain a weather observing and reporting net essential to combat air operations. Posing as civilians with varying cover stories and carrying only a civilian identification card functioned not only as weathermen and advisors, but as forward air controllers, intelligence gatherers, and fighters. By 1972 the Air Weather Service had twenty-seven jump qualified combat weather team weathermen. Most were assigned in support of the XVIII Airborne Corps, or the 82d and 101st Airborne Divisions, but others were assigned with the 7th Weather Squadron in Germany and eight were assigned with the 5th Weather Wing's Detachment 75 at Eglin AFB's Hurlburt Field in support of Air Force and Army Special Forces. From 1972 to about 1985 parachutist qualified combat weather teams and special operations weather teams were considered nonessential. The prevailing senior leadership attitude during this period was expressed by a question AWS chief of staff, Colonel Edwin E. Carmell hypothetically asked in December 1972 of "If you look at it objectively, what kinds of weather do you get out of those guys?" in referring to Detachment 75. "I think the answer is pretty clear," he continued: "they aren't needed."