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#Air force land of the free because of the brave images how to

Some of them went through the line just to get cake and nothing else. We brought a huge cake and bunch of sodas to share with them. They would not eat until our entire team went through and served ourselves first. Their hospitality was second to none as we dined on goat, vegetables, and Nan bread. They are smart, eager to learn, and some of the heartiest, smallest guys I have ever met.Īfter everything was over we had a big feast to celebrate. Not only during the mountain run, but during the entire competition. The ANA medics that ran the course made it look easy. It was something that was on my “to do” list while I was here and I’m glad I did it. It smoked me and I consider myself to be in decent shape. With my IBA, weapon, ammo and supplies I had at least 100 extra pounds on my back on a climb from 8000 to just over 9600 feet. We had to take a crew serve weapon with us and I carried the ammo for it. I was part of the security team that climbed the mountain and set up the station at the top.

The competition ended with a mountain run carrying their medic bag and completing 3 medical scenarios along the way.

#Air force land of the free because of the brave images how to

They also learned how to mark a landing zone in case they had to call in a medevac. Hopefully this will keep anyone else from walking into a chopper blade. We had a CSAR team come in and educate them on the proper way to approach a helicopter and load and unload patients. Some of them did really well while it was obvious that some of them had never fired a weapon before. I was in charge of the range and put together a program for them to shoot their AK-47s. We had medics from all over the country come and compete in a 4 day competition that included medical lectures and exercises to firing at the range. We put together the first annual ANA combat medic competition for the entire country. We have been working on a big project for the last 2 months and it has finally come to a close. Family and friends are very important to them, so it’s natural for them to stop and say hello. This is their home and they feel comfortable. Outside the wire our senses are heightened as we feel threatened. It got better as our commander would have conversations with the ANA commander at the end of every day. The problem is they would stop unannounced in the middle of town or nowhere, and we would have to block traffic and do security halts. We even stopped so they could pick up passengers. We had several unscheduled stops for bathroom breaks, stops for sodas and water, or just to say “Hi” to someone they recognized walking on the side of the road. Driving with the ANA is something that I would describe as interesting if I was using a polite term.

We provided security to the ANA troops who were taking soft shelled ambulances downrange to different locations. I spent the trip in the gunner’s turret again so I got some good pictures. If you saw some of the “roads” over here you would understand why. That doesn’t sound like much, but a lot of that was done at less than 15 mph. We just finished our longest mission to date and it is good to be home again.