Free Republic

Beloved Friends, especially those outside of Papua: here is an urgent, current prayer request: Please pray for our co-workers in Papua. Their 12 year-old son is sick with what appears to be appendicitis, and they've had to wait all night for a plane to be able to come get them from the village as planes here cannot fly at night. The mom is in the village with her four kids, while the dad is currently in town. This morning, the weather is terrible and so far the plane has been unable to land to pick them up. There is a...

It took a medevac unit 59 minutes to get U.S. Army Spec. Chazray Clark to a hospital in southern Afghanistan after receiving a call that a roadside bombing severed three of his limbs. Clark did not survive.

...Army regulations require that medevac helicopters follow the Geneva Convention, which specifies that they must be unarmed and display prominent Red Cross markings. Furthermore, Army regulation forbids medevac choppers from entering a combat zone without armed helicopter escort. If armed escort is not immediately available, medevac helicopters remain grounded, regardless the emergency. Once they do go in, they become a conspicuous target for enemy forces, most of whom have never read the Geneva Convention, and would laugh it out of existence if they had.

Every day in Afghanistan there are casualties requiring helicopter evacuation. There is a high probability that as you read this, someone is bleeding and in the process of extraction from the battlefield. US Army MEDEVAC helicopters fly unarmed into combat emblazoned with Red Crosses on white backgrounds. This signals to the enemy that our people are unarmed. The enemy tries to shoot them down. The Air Force, Marines and British do not burden their helicopters with Red Crosses and they are armed with machine guns. This facilitates faster, safer evacuations. Army helicopters frequently must orbit landing zones because there is...

Open Letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and President Barack Obama Gentlemen, For the last seven years I have written about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have covered the US Army, Marines, Air Force and Navy. I’ve also covered the British, Lithuanian, Afghan and Iraqi forces, among others, in places ranging from Iraq to the Philippines and beyond. My most recent embed in Afghanistan was at personal invitation from then-General David Petraeus. It is said that I have spent more time with American combat forces than any writer in US history. I do not know if this...

Excellent Al Jazeera documentary about Medevac teams in Afghanistan.

Chief Warrant Officer Thomas Whitlock Jones folds up a crease-battered map of Vietnam that drapes his kitchen table in Canyon Country. He has to pick up his granddaughter from Rio Vista Elementary School. When he steps out the door of his suburban home and walks down Lakemore Drive to the school, his neighbors will have no idea there are two pieces of shrapnel from a bullet-shattered helicopter windshield still in his neck. Every day he’s reminded that the Vietnam War is still inside him — both figuratively and literally. Last month, after close to 40 years of war memories held...

JOINT SECURITY STATION CHILAT – In a war zone, the ability to quickly transport injured personnel for treatment is critical for all, but especially for those serving at remote forts along the Iran-Iraq border in northern Maysan province. To that end, members of U.S. Border Transition Team Phoenix and the flight crew and medics of Company C, 3rd Battalion, 238th Aviation Regiment, recently assisted their Iraqi medical partners by providing basic MEDEVAC training to members of the 2nd and 3rd Battalions, 11th Brigade, Iraqi Department of Border Enforcement. The U.S. team, attached to the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored...

CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE ADDER, Iraq, Oct. 6, 2009 – Maj. Anthony Meador is near the end of his third tour in Iraq as an Army aviator. Army Maj. Anthony Meador inspects a maintenance panel near the wheel of a Black Hawk helicopter. Meador is wrapping up his third tour in Iraq. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Neil Gussman  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Having served in Baghdad in 2004 and at Joint Base Balad in 2007, he now commands Company C, 1st Battalion, 52nd Aviation Regiment, a Fort Wainwright, Alaska, unit attached here to 2nd Battalion, 104th Aviation Regiment,...

Flying into the besieged Afghan base during a nighttime firefight this weekend was a harrowing mix of overwhelming noise, stomach dropping maneuvers and shadows hurrying through the gloom. When the chopper lifted off moments later with three wounded soldiers, it left behind others who were wounded but refused to be MEDEVACED out of the combat zone so they could return to fight with their buddies. Fighting raged at two remote U.S. outpostsnear the Pakistan border this weekend, that left eight U.S. soldiers dead and 24 wounded. The battle was fought from Friday night through Sunday as hundreds of Taliban insurgents...

CAMP TAJI, Iraq, June 24, 2009 – The phone rings, and silence fills the room. All eyes and ears become focused on the soldier answering. The word “urgent” is uttered, and the sequence begins. An Army 1st Cavalry Division medical evacuation crew run up a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter at Camp Taji, Iraq, June 22, 2009, to ensure everything is working properly before assuming duty for the day. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Travis Zielinski  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Aircrews scramble as shouts of “Mission!” echo through the hallway. A once-quiet building now is filled with the commotion...

Kim Jong-il's Health 'Getting Rapidly Worse' The health of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is rapidly deteriorating, prompting the hasty decision to name his third son Jong-un as heir apparent, sources told the Chinese press. The Global News, a sister paper of the official People’s Daily, on Thursday quoted a foreign ambassador in Pyongyang as saying that Kim Jong-il's fragile health made the situation in North Korea "very complicated." The envoy told the Global News that authorities in Pyongyang are keeping tight lid on information about Kim's health. A North Korean source in Beijing said Beijing-based North Korean officials from...

CAMP TAJI — An aeromedical evacuation pilot from the Combat Aviation Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross here, Feb. 6, for heroism and extraordinary achievement in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Chief Warrant Officer 3 James Frederick was presented the award by Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, the commanding general of the 4th Inf. Div., for rescuing four trapped Iraqi National Police officers in eastern Baghdad, July 18, 2008. Frederick, from Groves, Texas, piloted his UH-60 air ambulance helicopter while hovering over a burning building to save the men. The rescue called for a possible hoist; a...

2/6/2009 - MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, Kan. (AFNS) -- A few Airmen from the 931st Air Refueling Group spent their Super Bowl weekend resting from a 12-day aeromedical evacuation mission in Afghanistan. Eight reservists from the 931st manned a specially equipped KC-135 Stratotanker that made four back-to-back trips to Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, to pick up wounded and sick troops for evacuation to Ramstein Air Base, Germany. "It was a long mission," said Staff Sgt. Trevor Derenthal, a crew chief assigned to the 931st Aircraft Maintenance Squadron. Lt. Col. Tyoshi "T" Tung, a KC-135 pilot assigned to the 18th Air Refueling...

A video about Travis AFB reservists flying a MedEvac mission from Travis to Rammstein to Bagrham and back. http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1407952648/bctid1664436922

11/24/2008 - JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq (AFNS) -- Iraqi airmen conducted an aeromedical evacuation mission from here Nov. 21, ferrying an Iraqi servicemember injured in combat from the Air Force Theater Hospital here to Forward Operating Base Gabe in Baqubah, Iraq. "Aeromedical evacuation is crucial to the viability of the Iraqi air force," said Col. (Dr.) Paul Young, the Coalition Air Forces Training Team surgeon general and director of Iraqi Air Forces Aeromedical Services Training. "We're here in an advisory role to help the Iraqi air force create an aeromedical evacuation program that they're comfortable with and one that works...

AMARAH, Iraq, Aug. 1, 2008 – Six months ago, Army Maj. Donald Crider was teaching high school physics in Seattle. Today, he’s assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division’s 4th Brigade Combat Team, flying helicopters in southeastern Iraq. Army Maj. Donald Crider, a Seattle native assigned to the 126th Aviation Regiment, performs a pre-flight check on a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter used for medical evacuation missions near Amarah, Iraq. Crider and soldiers of the 126th support the 1st Cavalry Division’s 4th Brigade Combat Team. U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Terence Ewings, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division   (Click photo...

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. -- Two medical helicopters collided in mid-air Sunday afternoon in Flagstaff less than a mile from a medical center, killing seven people, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said. All three people on one of the helicopters were killed, including a patient and the pilot, said FAA spokesman Ian Gregor. Four others were killed and three critically injured in the midair collision, Gregor said. Tom Boughner with the Flagstaff Police Department said he wasn't sure if they were all on the second helicopter or whether some were on the ground. The FAA said one of the helicopters was operated...

CAMP STRIKER — Problems that arise during aero-medical evacuation missions can seriously endanger the life of a patient. With that in mind, Company C, 1st Battalion, 126th Aviation Regiment, a National Guard MEDEVAC company from Bangor, Maine, currently deployed to Tallil Airbase, has been training units on MEDEVAC procedures to ensure the safety of patients they transport. “Training like this is vital whether it be in a war zone or back home on (annual training),” said 1st Lt. Karl Chandler, forward support medical team leader, Co. C, 1-126th Avn. Regt. “Anyone, from Coalition forces to civilian (emergency medical technicians) and...

5/15/2008 - BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AFPN) -- May 14 marked another significant event when members of the Iraqi air force flew its first medical evacuation mission since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The crew consisted of an Iraqi pilot, flight medic and aerial gunner -- each with a U.S. military counterpart -- as they transported their first patient, an Iraqi man, from the Air Force Theater Hospital at Balad Air Base to the U.S. Army's 86th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad. "This is the first (medevac) mission in the history of the Iraqi air force," said Iraqi Lt....