News

446th AES patches things up at Global Medic

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Jake Chappelle
  • 446th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
MCCHORD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. --  More than 60 Reservists from the 446th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron participated in a joint force medical training exercise from June 6-18, at Fort McCoy, Wis.

Global Medic is an annual exercise run by Army Reserve Command to apply the operational readiness of assigned medical units in a joint and coalition training environment. Incorporating both live and virtual simulation, this exercise provides realistic, battle-focused training scenarios. 

"There were over 800 Army personnel and around 120 Air Force personnel at Ft McCoy," said Col. Jan Moore-Harbert, 446th AES commander. "One of our goals was to train the 420th Minimal Care Detachment for the Air Force mission of a Mobile Aeromedical Staging Facility. Not only were we training the Army on AF doctrine but we were testing out a new tent package for the Army to make their new role of a MASF work."

"Our purpose is to train for war and care for the sick and injured in flight, during war and peace time," said Senior Master Sgt. Saudi McVea, standardization and evaluations superintendent with the 446th AES. "Our goal is to move Armed Forces personnel and civilian nationals to more definitive care after injury."

The 446th AES has participated in five previous exercises. 

"Our role was to orient the Army to what the Air Force's role is regarding aeromedical evacuation," said Colonel Moore-Harbert. 

"Colonel Moore-Harbert provided the Army with aeromedical evacuation movement training and training in communication between services, which allows them to request patient transport. The training also provided detail of what the aeromedical evacuation community can provide to assist the Army in the movement of patients getting rapidly transported out of the theater for more definitive care." 

"When we did this last year, we had the USS Comfort Medical Treatment Facility to send our patients to," said Sergeant McVea. "This year was different because we had more helicopters. Because of that, we performed a lot of helicopter-patient extractions and patient-ambulance to aircraft transfers." 

According to Sergeant McVea, exercises such as Global Medic also allow people who normally don't operate in the same conditions as field and transport medics to have a hands-on experience of an aeromedical evacuation.

"We had a physician who flew with us as a simulated patient," said Sergeant McVea. "He was very surprised when he saw how congested the patient care was on the plane. He saw the reality of our work environment and it gave him a different point of view of how we operate." 

Tech. Sgt. Shawn Clayton, an aerospace evacuation technician with the 446th AES, believes exercises like Global Medic are important for Joint-Service cohesion.

"It felt real good to work in a joint force environment," said Sergeant Clayton. "We should do more exercises like these because it is great to work more seamlessly with other service branches." 

"It's always good to work with other services," said Sergeant McVea. "They appreciate us, especially, since we're leaning more toward joint service missions. You get to see what they go through and it changes your perception." 

The experiences of exercises like these are a good primer for training members new to the squadron.

"As my first medical and joint service exercise, it took me some time to just take in the nearly overwhelming amount of experiences I had," said Sergeant Clayton. "This was my first time actually flying in the C-130 Hercules. It was also my first flight as a qualified aeromedical evacuation crew member. Just keeping up with the operations tempo, while becoming more familiar with my role, was quite challenging." 

According to Sergeant Clayton, Global Medic and joint service exercises are an evolving and improving asset. There has never been a time that Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines have had better medical care than now. This year's Global Medic further demonstrated this.