A Wyoming Air National Guard aeromedical evacuation crew recently mentored Tunisian doctors, nurses, and crews during a three-day mass-casualty exercise at Bizerte, Tunisia. “The Libyan crisis really woke up the Tunisians to the logistics of how to handle mass causalities,” said 1st Lt. Shane Ryan, a flight nurse with the state’s 187th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, in a June 15 release from the Cheyenne-based 153rd Airlift Wing. During Medlite 2012, Ryan and fellow Air Guardsman Maj. Janice Weixelman, a flight surgeon, shared their know-how with Tunisian crews aboard a HH-3 Helicopter and C-130 airlifters, in addition to aiding with a live air-crash response drill, according to the release. “The majority of participants had never had the experience of working in or around helicopters or C-130s” said Weixelman. “This exercise gave them an invaluable opportunity to understand the complexity and extent of aeromedical evacuation,” she added. The Wyoming ANG is paired with Tunisia under the Guard’s state partnership program. The exercise took place May 22 to May 24. (Tunisia report by SSgt. Natalie Stanley)
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…