Pennsylvania Air National Guardsmen deployed to Guatemala for about three months to build a new medical clinic as part of exercise Beyond the Horizon. About 100 members of the RED HORSE units from Horsham Air Guard Station and Fort Indiantown Gap built the new clinic in La Blanca, Guatemala, to help locals get treatment for insect-borne diseases, such as Zika, and other illnesses such as hepatitis and HIV, according to an Air National Guard release. “The villagers were very welcoming to us being there. [They were] happy we were providing them with a clinic,” SrA Christopher Montague, 111th RED HORSE Squadron Det. 1 heavy equipment operator said in the release.
U.S. Southern Command recently announced its first lethal strike on a suspected narco-trafficking vessel in two months, and the first under a newly formed permanent counter-cartel task force. The U.S. is also reportedly planning to transfer MQ-9 drones to Colombia to bolster its counter-cartel efforts.