TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – Travis AFB conducted exercise Ready Eagle, a full-scale disaster response exercise, to prepare David Grant Medical Center personnel the capability to respond to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive event July 22, 2021, here.
The Ready Eagle training exercise is under the direction of Air Force Medical Service (AFMS) teamed with Booz Allen Hamilton consulting firm to develop and facilitate this training. This Air Force readiness and training event does not only keep Travis AFB prepared for hostile incidents, but it also accomplishes a congressional mandate.
“Presidential Policy Directive 8 established a National Response Framework of which the medical contingency response (MCRP) plan is a part,” said Maj. Rachel M. Russo, MD, MS, 60th Medical Group surgery disaster team chief. “Travis AFB remains the federal coordinating center for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Region 9 making DGMC an important hub in the event of a regional or national disaster.”
All squadrons assigned to the 60th Medical Group participated in this exercise and that isn’t often the case.
“All of our services don’t usually get to participate like this in this exercise and it’s time we practice to work and integrate as we would for a mass casualty event to work out any limiting factors in training rather than a real-world event.,” said Staff Sgt. Cheryl Moore,
60th Medical Group noncommissioned officer in charge of plans and programs.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 60th MDG haven’t had an exercise such as Ready Eagle for more than a year. Because of the pandemic, medics had to adapt and change how they plan and respond to hostile events or disasters.
“This training tests our capabilities and plans to ensure they are not only robust to support a wide range of contingencies, but they are realistic and would hold up with new challenges and constraints we could/would encounter,” said Master Sgt. Jubert Tenorio, 60th MDG patient administration team chief. “Through rigorous planning and continuous training, this becomes our second nature. As a medic, once we get called, we only have one mission: to save lives!”