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Aeromedical evacuation Airmen train Lebanese Armed Forces

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Maria Bowman
  • 375th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. --  The Defense Institute for Medical Operations sent a four-person team to Beirut, Lebanon to teach, mentor and learn from the Lebanese Armed Forces about various ways to provide assistance during a humanitarian crisis.

Lt. Col. James Baldock, 375th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron Commander, and Capt. Warren Carter, 375 AES aircrew training officer in charge, traveled to Lebanon in April along with Lt. Col. Pam Ward-Demo, U.S. Africa Command infectious disease doctor, and retired Army Col. Pam Evans, Health and Human Services disaster preparedness expert.

DIMO is a dual-service agency, comprised of Air Force and Navy personnel, which sends various traveling teams to foreign nations to develop curriculum and teach a wide variety of courses around the world.

DIMO works to build international healthcare bridges, prevent communicable diseases, and helps with disaster preparedness and other current healthcare issues. To date, DIMO has trained 11,000 students from 89 countries.

"I think the training went very well," said Carter.

"I've done several of these before, and one thing that always sticks out is the partnerships we're building for peace in whatever country we are teaching at that time."

Baldock added that he was impressed with how much knowledge and experience they already have.

"It's interesting to teach them, because they were way more experienced at dealing with the aftermath of terrorism than we are, such as with the current Syrian crisis and the displacement of people," he said.

"They are a country of four million, and they have an influx of two million Syrian refugees or displaced persons. They also have domestic terrorism because the Hezbollah live over there; their headquarters is in Beirut."

Carter said one of the LAF lieutenants shared an emotional story about when she was a child, the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon was opened up to the public, before the bombing 1983 which killed 63 people.

She celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas at the embassy and vividly remembers a coloring book she got, and how it impacted her when she was a kid, because she had never seen one before.

"Then the bombing happened, and her relations with the U.S. were non-existent," he said. "Doing this DIMO mission helped build that relationship back with the citizens.
"It shows that we are not going to let terrorism win."

One of the things the team learned from the training was how differently they handle certain situations, including responding to man-made and natural disasters.

Baldock said, "Our domestic response is organized one way, and they are organized a different way.

"There is no right or wrong way to do it.

"There are different resources available to us and they don't have the geographic area that we are responsible for. During a command and control exercise, they showed how they control resources.

"Their military has a very limited role in a domestic response. Even when they are responding, they are very hierarchical in that there is one person in charge, where we have several agencies trying to work together.

"They are definitely more streamlined with a direct chain of control. They are not as big and don't have as many resources we do, and the agencies are not as robust, so that can be an advantage to them."

Baldock said that going over there and representing the Air Force helped to strengthen relationships between the countries, and that medical personnel wherever you go are always interested in helping people, so that helps to build unity in purpose.

"I hope they were able to identify a way ahead on the issues they may have to deal with and do some planning in advance," he said.

"I think we helped them identify some situations or issues that may come up that we have witnessed in the U.S., for which they may not have previously planned for.

"But, when it comes down to it, wherever you come from and no matter the organizational structure or size of resources, medical people are the same--we just want to help."