Training for Disaster in Africa:

Air National Guard doctors, nurses, medical technicians, and pharmacists from a variety of Air Guard units deployed to Africa for Natural Fire 2006, a training exercise involving some 1,000 military personnel from the US, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. The goal of the exercise, which is the first held in almost six years, is to practice how to provide medical, veterinary, and engineering civil assistance following a natural disaster. However, it offers real-world experience for the medics, who expected to treat about 2,000 patients over the course of three days. Tennessee ANG physician Col. William Walters, said that the Americans hope to “build a strategic relationship” with Uganda, where the exercise was staged.