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DAEGU AIR BASE, Republic of Korea — As a public health officer supporting the 11th Air Task Force while it’s deployed in the Pacific, U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Mark Olson has a rather unusual task on his daily to-do list: catching mosquitoes.
Based at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, Olson is part of a two-member preventive air and space medicine team that works to keep task force members healthy by preventing them from getting sick in the first place. A core focus is ensuring local mosquitoes aren’t carrying dangerous pathogens that could cause illnesses such as malaria or West Nile virus—and the only way to know for certain is to catch them and test them.
“Our main role on the medical team is to do everything that we can do to keep people from getting sick,” Olson said.
This is why 11 ATF members might see Olson hiking out to check his two mosquito traps every day. He brought them in his own luggage, determined to have a way that he could test for dangerous conditions, and started testing while the 11 ATF was in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, supporting exercise Resolute Force Pacific. Now, while they support Ulchi Freedom Shield 25 in the Republic of Korea, he continues to test.
One trap is better at catching “day-biting” mosquitoes, while the other focuses on “night-biters.” Typically, Olson uses a lure scented like human body odor, along with dry ice to produce the carbon dioxide that also attracts mosquitoes. While deployed in the Pacific, however, dry ice is hard to find, so Olson got creative by mixing brown sugar, water and yeast, which still produces a small bit of carbon dioxide.
“In the deployed environment, you have to be a little more innovative,” he said. “If we don’t have dry ice, it doesn’t mean we can’t do the trapping; we just have to come up with a way to do that here. And it seems to be working.”
Within two weeks in the Republic of Korea, Olson and his teammate, U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Tasha Flippen, 11 ATF bioenvironmental engineering technician, also from Nellis Air Force Base, caught between 60-75 mosquitoes from several species. They send some of the mosquitoes to laboratories at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio or Camp Zama, Japan, where experts there can test for a variety of pathogens. The mosquitoes are packaged up in plastic test tubes and sent via normal mail.
“I filled out this customs form in Saipan, and the clerk asked, ‘What is it?’, and I said, ‘It’s lab samples… of dead mosquitoes,’” Olson recalled with a laugh. “He couldn’t find that as an option, so he just had to put ‘lab samples.’”
According to Olson, none of the mosquitoes he has caught and tested have come back positive for dangerous pathogens. This is especially important as he goes out before the main body arrives to ensure that a site is prepared and safe. Otherwise, he would recommend stricter precautions, ranging from wearing more repellent to taking certain medications. He tests mosquitoes whether deployed or at home.
Meanwhile, Flippen mostly focuses on water quality at the site, as well as warning task force members of flag conditions to know how much they should rest and drink water during a work period. This is critical for preventing heat injuries. The team also visits airfield worksites to ensure flightline operations are safe.
“Having preventive medicine teams are critical, especially when setting up a site,” Olson said. “Otherwise, you’re getting there and being reactive, as opposed to proactive and saying, ‘Now we know what the threats are, and here’s what we can do to keep our people safe.’ You can’t do the mission unless you have people who are healthy.”
“Without preventive medicine, people could be exposed to harmful food-borne illnesses, or the water could be bad,” Flippen added. “We keep people safe so they can stay in the fight.”
| Date Taken: | 09.12.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 09.11.2025 20:12 |
| Story ID: | 547928 |
| Location: | DAEGU AIR BASE, KR |
| Web Views: | 151 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, The 11 ATF Mosquito Whisperer: Lt. Col. Mark Olson, by 2nd Lt. Grace Brandt, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
