Nineteen airmen from Air Force Reserve Command’s 433rd Medical Group at Lackland AFB, Tex., treated 2,373 patients over a six-day period early this month in the Ayacucho region of Peru. They were part of New Horizons-Peru 2008, a three-month US Southern Command-sponsored joint humanitarian assistance initiative. The team provided general medical care and diagnosis, dentistry, optometry, pharmaceutical needs, and public health education. The 433rd MDG is one of several Air Force medical units participating in New Horizons. The others include: AFRC’s 452nd MDG from March ARB, Calif.; 349th MDG from Travis AFB, Calif.; and 459th Aerospace Medicine Squadron from Andrews AFB, Md. (Includes Ayacucho report by Capt. David Tomiyama)
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…