Within just 55 hours, the Katrina evacuation hub at Lackland AFB, Tex., processed 9,788 evacuees, flown in aboard 89 aircraft. Lackland’s Wilford Hall Medical Center not only helped evaluate the evacuees, but also sent seven critical-care air transport teams to rotate in and out of the Gulf Region and a 60-person contingency aeromedical staging facility team to New Orleans, where it expects to stay for at least 30 days. AFRC’s 433rd Airlift Wing, at Lackland, has flown its C-5 airlifters on 20 medevac missions. More than 250 basic training graduates at Lackland turned down their well-earned “town pass” to help set up shelters.
The U.S., South Korea, and Japan flew an unusual trilateral flight with two U.S. B-52H Stratofortress bombers escorted by two Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-2s, and two ROK Air Force KF-16 fighters—both countries’ respective variants of the F-16—July 11. That same weekend, the top military officers of the three nations…