The airmen who deployed to Angol, Chile, on March 8 as part of an expeditionary medical support team to help treat victims of last month’s violent earthquake in the South American nation are now operating out of a mobile hospital there that they helped construct. The US contingent, which includes 60 USAF medics is working side-by-side with Chilean medics in treating about 225 patients a day at this clinic, which took three days to erect and became fully operational on March 13. Two days later, the first surgery was performed there to repair an ankle fracture. “The Americans here have helped out a lot [and] we feel very grateful that they all are helping our country and our people,” said Chilean army Second Corporal Jonathan Cuevas, a paramedic working in the mobile hospital. (Angol report by SSgt. Vanessa Young)
The Pentagon's research labs are ramping up their search for munitions that can be mass-produced—an effort likely to be buoyed by billions of dollars in the department's new fiscal 2027 budget request and tens of billions in the upcoming years. While the topline information shared about the President’s defense budget…