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ctive duty and reserve airmen at Ramstein AB, Germany, who man the 435th Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility, have seen their workload mushroom this summer as the US troop surge took hold in Iraq. The facility airmen care for wounded personnel, awaiting transport to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany or hospitals in the states. Scott Schonauer of Stars and Stripes reports that in May the Ramstein-based airmen cared for 1,545 patients and getting them ready for flight and in June, the number was 1,564. Only two months have topped May and June for the number of patients passing through: April and May 2003.
A new Air Force plan for how many fighters it needs in the next decade marks a sharp upturn from what it thought it needed just seven years ago. But analysts worry that the aspirational plan now in Congress' hands doesn’t make a tight enough connection to national strategy.
