DoDLive | Tag Archive | Warfighter Wednesday

Wednesday Warfighter: MEDEVAC

Filed under DoD News by tiffaniwalker on April 20, 2011 at 10:29 am {no comments}

An MH-60S from the 2515th Naval Air Ambulance Detachment in flight near Basra, Iraq. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Navy (released).

By Lt. j.g. Jeff Ryan, who is now deployed with the 2515th Navy Air Ambulance Detachment, a NavyLive guest blogger.

As MEDEVAC pilots, we never know what the mission is until the call comes in. We can prepare for what we expect to see—the location, conditions, and patient injuries—but in the end it’s just a guess. Around here, we’re geared towards an overland mission—evacuations from bases or LZs throughout Kuwait and southern Iraq. We train towards these scenarios and configure our aircraft for desert operations.

At the same time, we know that as a Navy unit we have to be prepared for overwater missions with little notice. While it’s not our primary focus here in Kuwait, the ability to evacuate patients at sea anytime night or day makes us a valuable asset in the region. During my second night standing the alert I learned this firsthand when “MEDEVAC, MEDEVAC, MEDEVAC” was announced over the intercom system and my crew got the call to evacuate a patient from a ship off the coast of Iraq.

Under normal circumstances, flying to a ship is heavy on preparation and planning, so when we were given just minutes to be airborne we had to adapt accordingly. In anticipation of a night mission, our night vision goggles had been mounted on our helmets prior to sunset, and our equipment had been laid out in our lockers to grab quickly before running to the aircraft. We had to make one extra stop as our overland survival gear was swapped out for vests with flotation equipment and oxygen tanks for overwater operations. As we jumped into the helicopter and started the engines, we were passed the vessel’s frequencies and location which were then loaded into the aircraft’s computer. The aircrew pulled chocks and tower cleared our helo—now carrying the callsign “Dustoff 11 Evac”– to depart just eleven minutes after we first got the call.

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Wednesday Warfighter: Fiscal Vigilance in Afghanistan

Filed under DoD News by tiffaniwalker on March 23, 2011 at 11:51 am {no comments}

KUNAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan - U.S. Army Capt. Pat Birgy of Mt. Pleasant, Mich, finance officer for the Iowa National Guard's 734th Agribusiness Development Team and Warrant Officer 1 Marty Osmundsen of Des Moines, Iowa, construction specialist for the ADT, talk through an interpreter to a local resident along the canal that runs through Asadabad, the provincial capital, during a foot patrol along the canal Mar. 22. (Photo by U.S. Air Force Capt. Peter Shinn, 734th Agribusiness Development Team/RELEASED)

By U.S. Army Capt. Pat Birgy, Finance Officer, 734^th Agribusiness Development Team

In my job as the Commander’s Emergency Response Program for the Iowa ADT, my job is to ensure that the projects we commit U.S. funds to are legitimate, sound and simply make sense. We get an abundance of project proposals from many sources, including the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, villagers and local businessmen. Many we can determine on face value if further consideration is warranted. With every project, regardless of cost, we have to maintain a level of “professional skepticism,” especially in Afghanistan, which was recently ranked second only to Somalia on the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index.

One recent project that was small-scale in nature and initially considered a sensible cash-for-work project was a request to clean one of the canals in the Asadabad area. This was presented as a time-sensitive, urgent need. However, we still felt we should go out and assess the condition of the canal, and talk to the villagers along the canal to make sure the project made sense prior to funding the project.

What we found when we talked to Afghans who lived alongside the canal is that the canal had already been cleaned and wasn’t in need of further cleaning. Moreover, none of the villagers were ever made aware of a pending cash-for-work canal cleaning project that they would have ostensibly benefited from. As a result, we have put the project on hold and presented our findings to the provincial Director of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock. This has spurred further discussion about why this project came to be presented to us and why we were told it was urgently needed.

This experience, which is not a unique one here, provides further validation of the old intelligence saying, “Trust, but verify.” Billions of dollars have been spent on efforts to rebuild Afghanistan, so one small canal project may not seem like much. But fiscal responsibility starts at the lowest possible level, and we feel like every penny of the taxpayer’s dollar should be properly spent here.

Warfighter Wednesday: Visiting Local Farms

Filed under DoD News by Jose de Leon on December 1, 2010 at 3:20 pm {no comments}

An Afghan girl looks up from cutting parsley from a small plot during a foot patrol near Forward Operating Base Wright in Afghanistan’s Kunar Province by the Iowa National Guard’s 734th Agribusiness Development Team.

By U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Bennett Groth, production agriculture specialist, Iowa National Guard’s 734th Agri-Business Development Team.

Tuesday, we did a foot patrol around the base to look at local farms and see how winter wheat planting was coming. We found out a couple of interesting things.

First, we saw most of the fields had already been planted, but not all of them with wheat. A lot of the smaller plots were planted to herbs and vegetables of one kind or another. I was surprised to see a couple of small plots of parsley and spinach. There was also a fairly large field for this part of the world, about a 100 meters by 50 meters, planted to rice. Compared to Iowa, nearly all the fields here are tiny.
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Warfighter Wednesday: Learning the Ways of Afghan Farmers

Filed under DoD News by Jose de Leon on November 24, 2010 at 8:00 am {one comment}

Chief Master Sgt. Don Kuehl meets with local farmers at the proposed site of a demonstration farm near the Sarkani District Center in Afghanistan’s Kunar Province. Photo courtesy of 734th ADT.

By Chief Master Sgt. Don Kuehl, soils specialist and Sarkani District project manager, Iowa National Guard’s 734th Agri-Business Development Team.

Staff Sgt. Ben Groth and I recently performed a quality assurance-quality control check on a canal cleaning project in the Sarkani District Center in Afghanistan’s Kunar Province. During our visit, we obtained measurements of the proposed demonstration farm land and green house area, but also learned a lot from the local farmers we met.

When we arrived, we noticed that several local people were working the farm plots in the proposed area. The farmers who were working on the farm land had a tractor and field cultivator in one of the plots, which contained a seed bed.

We stopped and introduced ourselves to three of the eight farmers who farm this land. We watched as one of the farmers hand-spread urea fertilizer on the plots to be seeded. The three farmers were preparing to seed alfalfa on the tilled plots. When we visited with them they told us that they used the production from this land as a source of forage for their livestock. They seemed very pleased that we were interested in what they were doing.
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Warfighter Wednesday: Khas Khonar Farmers Leave Great Impression

Filed under DoD News by Jose de Leon on November 17, 2010 at 1:54 pm {no comments}

Chief Warrant Officer 3 Richard McClain shakes hands after meeting with the elder who manages a currant farm for a nearby village on a potential demonstration farm site in Khas Konar, Aghanistan. Photo courtesy of 734th ADT.

By Chief Warrant Officer 3 Richard McClain, Khas Konar Projects Manager, Iowa National Guard’s 734th Agri-Business Development Team.

We went to Khas Konar, a district in the southern portion of Kunar Province, a couple of days ago to look at five potential projects the district agriculture director thought we could help with. I came away impressed with the integrity and work ethic of the people of Khas Konar.

We started by looking at a seed cleaner in a small Khas Konar village. We’d been told it needed to be repaired, but it needed a lot more than that. The motors had been taken out of it and it had apparently been used as a chicken coop for some time.

I met with the president of the local seed cleaner’s association. He was very honest, and told me the three motors and generator that run the seed cleaner had been stolen a long time ago by the association’s finance manager, who hadn’t been seen since. He didn’t seem very happy with that thief, and said if we fixed the seed cleaner, he would take it to his compound and make sure it was protected.
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