Delaware National Guard members come home!
Group was deployed to Afghanistan Theater of Operations since October

On Thursday, March 14th, five members of the Delaware National Guard’s 142^nd Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, returned home to the New Castle County Air Base. The team served as part of Operation Enduring Freedom and has been deployed to undisclosed areas near or in Afghanistan since October 2001. Family and friends awaited the group's arrival at 1 p.m.

"We are absolutely thrilled to have this team return home safely from a job well done," said Maj. Gen. Frank Vavala, adjutant general and military commander of the Delaware National Guard. "Delawareans should be extremely proud in knowing the efforts of this group helped save the lives of numerous Americans and our allies fighting terrorism in the mountains of Afghanistan," he said.

The mission of an Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron is to move casualties from the battlefield to a medical treatment facility. The process requires coordination between numerous specialty elements from the Air Force, other branches of our military services, and multinational forces. These elements are categorized into three groups - a command and control group, a support group and a patient care group.

The group returning to Delaware is a crew management cell. When the request for an air evacuation flight is received (from another element of the support group), the cell arranges flight orders and makes sure the patient care group (nurses and medical technicians) is ready to go, properly equipped and stocked with medical supplies. This is particularly challenging when one realizes the flight is filled with patients requiring different levels of medical care and could be coming or going almost anywhere in the world.

Although most serve part time with the Delaware National Guard, members of the 142^nd deploy often. The 142^nd has served on the battlefields of every recent conflict, and also provide peacetime evacuation, medical assistance and clean-up support to victims of natural disasters. Close to 90% of our military’s Aeromedical Evacuation capabilities are in the reserve components, (Air National Guard or Air Force Reserve). The remaining percentage is active duty Air Force, said Lt. Col. Virginia Schneider, commander of the 142^nd.

In addition to this group returning home, other teams from the 142^nd were activated and deployed last fall in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and remain in the Afghanistan Theater of Operations. Nearly 100 Airmen of the Delaware National Guard’s 166^th Security Forces Squadron have also been activated and deployed, serving here in the states as part of Homeland Defense and also escorting detainees to Cuba.

FOR MORE INFORMATION – contact Capt. Len Gratteri at 326-7010 or page at 247-5547