Air advisors with the Train Advise Assist Command-Air hosted 10 Afghan flight medics and a flight nurse for medical evacuation training on July 9 at Kabul international airport, where they simulated medevac procedures on a C-130H Hercules. Advisors and their trainees worked to reconfigure the cargo compartment with stretcher stations, and conducted procedures such as offloading patients and setting up litters. Afghan medics receive basic medical training through their national medical hospital, and then are sent to TAAC-Air for additional instructions to improve skills and techniques for medevac missions, TAAC-Air officials said. In order to build a sustainable training plan for Afghan military medics, TAAC-Air advisors are refreshing skills, such as movement fundamentals, with their trainees. The Afghan flight medics are the “cream of the crop,” said MSgt. Matthew Scott, the senior enlisted advisor at the NATO clinic in Kabul and an? emergency room manager from Eglin AFB, Fla. “We are working to get the young medics involved and get them so they can assist the experienced medics and soon do it by themselves,” he added. The TAAC-Air advisors host weekly training events with the Afghan flight medics, with assistance from USAF aeromedical evacuation experts.
Amid NATO’s continued push to ramp up air defenses in Eastern Europe, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall swung by seven allied countries to boost relations last week, including those on Russia’s and Ukraine’s doorstep.