Air Force Reserve Command airmen with the 445th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, have finished their fourth four-month rotation operating from Andrews AFB, Md., as aeromed recovery and movement central. Flying on available C-17, C-130, or KC-135 aircraft, the Reservists pick up patients overseas, transport them to Andrews for care at Washington, D.C. area military medical facilities, and finally transport them to other US destinations for follow-on care. Comprising five five-person aeromedevac flying crews and 10 ground support crews, the Reservists handled 25-plus missions per week. Maj. Christopher Paige, medical crew director instructor at Ramstein AB, Germany, says, “No other medical organization in this country or the world, for that matter, is moving patients like these people do.”
The Pentagon’s cost estimate for the Iran War has risen to $37.5 billion, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a congressional committee July 21—and without emergency supplemental funding, the military will have to “curtail” training to cover those costs, he added.