Michael's Dispatches

All of this can easily be answered. In the first place, it will probably not be necessary to arm all medevac birds, and it could be left up to an individual commander's discretion to arm or not arm, to display the red cross or not display the red cross, and to have the litter carousel mounted on some designated birds but not on others.

Personally, I would like to see the flexibility to allow medevac birds with the red cross in non-combat roles. The red cross stands out during disaster relief missions, for example. But allowing birds within a medevac detachment to be armed puts armed escort birds directly under the command of the medevac commander and gives the flexibility for those birds to also be used for medevac missions.

The litter carousel simply needs to be discarded. It is an unnecessarily complicated hinderance to patient care, and it is unreasonable to expect a single medic to provide any level of enroute care to six patients who are confined to the carousel in-flight.

My own medevac experience was with Hueys. They could be configured to take either or 6 litters, and the preferred configuration for us was litters stacked horizontally across the cabin instead of 6 in 2 rows of stacked longitudinally on either side of the cabin. This allowed for, if necessary, additional ambulatory patients to be loaded in the rear hellholes alongside the transmission and for the litter patients to be stacked by priority so that the medic was really only committed to enroute care for the 1-2 of highest priority. Loading 6 restricted the medic to doing little more than checking vitals enroute, and with no access to the patients to perform any care.

DumbGrunt,

With all due respect, go to hell. I have served in Panama, Desert Storm, support of the Bosnia mission, and my most recent deployment was to Iraq in 09-10 to train the Iraqi Police. I received a direct commission in 08 and went back to train with the young LTs just rolling out of West Point, ROTC, and OCS. The young men and women who lead our troops today signed up, raised their right hands, and swore their oaths during a time of war. Their country was fighting in two countries the day they said "send me".

The kids who went on to be pilots are the best and brighest we have ever put in the pilot seat. They would gladly and without reservation fly into harm's way to save a brother or sister service member. They cannot because the current commanders will not let them. Do it once and you are grounded. The commanders are risk averse because the elected officials want only bad guys killed and school children smiling. They have no idea how or men and women risk life and limb trying to seperate the pregnant women from the bomb vest wearers.

Your assertion that our current pilots are not as brave as former generations is as wrong as it is vulgar. You should be ashamed of your comments.

Dumbgrunt, the issue with the battalion commander and brigade commander making critical decisions in the MEDEVAC process is that none of them have ever performed duties or been instructed in the nature of the medical chain to the same degree of MEDEVAC pilots (Medical Service Corps branch). Aviation branch focuses on their direct contribution to the fight itself (Air Assault, gunship support, development of battle by shaping operations, recon, etc). Support activities not directly related to these functions are an afterthought, or a one hour block of instruction in their leadership courses. MEDEVAC (MSC) officers make a career out of understanding the both the medical piece and how it fits into the aviation role. They train, apprentice, and are mentored on the process for years and have a better understanding of THIER operational environment (both aviation and medical). Just as I wouldn’t want a MEDEVAC pilot planning an Air Assault or an attack mission, nor would I want the straight lift or gunship pilot planning MEDEVAC support and launch decisions when people are dying.