A combined team of Afghan airmen and their USAF advisors conducted the first dedicated Mi-17 medical evacuation mission for the nascent Afghan air force’s Kandahar Air Wing. The mission took place Monday at the AAF’s Kandahar Air Base in the southwest part of the country. It involved two Mi-17s dispatched to bring an Afghan National Army officer with a compound leg fracture from Camp Bastion, also in Afghanistan’s southwest, back to Kandahar. “This mission demonstrated key teamwork, cooperation, and the communication we’ve been training for, and the results were flawless,” said Maj. Charla Quayle of the 738th Air Expeditionary Advisory Squadron, who was among the advisors on the helicopter that carried the patient. The transfer was the first test of the AAF medics’ new communications system and also provided them an opportunity to demonstrate their clinical capabilities. (Kandahar report by Capt. Jamie Humphries)
Navy Adm. Samuel J. Paparo Jr. assumed leadership of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, succeeding Navy Adm. John Aquilino at a change of command ceremony, urging action amid China's “increasing intrusive and expansionist claims,” on May 3