US Joint Forces Command plans to hold a five-day seminar in early December for senior military medical professionals to indoctrinate them into the world of joint medical operations. Officials say that the present-day and future concepts for joint task forces necessitate a change in medical thinking. In today’s operations, medical personnel are no longer “going in, doing a job, and coming back out,” says Rear Adm. Gregory Timberlake, JFCOM command surgeon. As members of a JTF, he adds, medics are being “involved from phase zero” and on.
After a long period in which munitions were almost an afterthought and sacrificed to pay for other priorities, the Air Force needs to focus on them in order to have the right “package” of capabilities for future conflicts, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said June 7.