The Air Force has dispatched scores of airmen—active, Air National Guard, and Air Force Reserve—to numerous locales recently to participate in humanitarian outreach programs. These activities include the recently concluded MEDFLAG 08 in Mali, where an Aviano AB, Italy-led team of medics trained more than 160 doctors, medics, and nurses, and treated more than 4,000 patients and another 4,000 or so goats and sheep. (Mali report by SrA. Justin Weaver) Eight Air Guard medics are aboard the USS Kearsarge as part of the second phase of Continuing Promise, a four-month civic assistance mission to six Caribbean islands; along with about 80 other airmen, they expect to treat a variety of ailments (medics of the first phase treated some 14,000 patients) among people with little access to routine medical care. (National Guard Bureau report by Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke) Air Force medics from 16 different bases recently returned from a medical exercise in Panama, where they treated more than 8,300 patients over a two-week period (Panama report by Capt. Ben. Sakrisson). In Laos, medics from Pacific Air Forces units provided first-responder training for Laotian medical personnel, teaching some to be trainers themselves (PACAF report by TSgt. Tom Czerwinski). In other Caribbean action, Air Reservists from Homestead ARB, Fla., took part in New Horizons, providing hot meals to the joint service personnel engaged in health care and construction of schools, clinics, and more. (Homestead report by Capt. Jay Bolden) Air Reserve medics were part of the New Horizons Task Force in Peru, where they are providing medical, dental, and optometry care, in a rotating schedule with other US military medics. (Peru report by TSgt. Kerry Jackson)
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.