MAXWELL AFB, Ala. — A C-130 transport aircraft made its way toward Fort Bragg, North Carolina, carrying a team of aeromedical evacuation personnel and several patients including injured Soldiers and a military working dog. The crew had taken over care from another AE team earlier that day and was now completing the final leg of the journey.
“There was a dog that had been involved in an IED blast,” said Senior Airman Matthew Stivers, a flight medic with the 908th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron. “And we were hanging blood on one of the guys midair.”
The patients, injured during an attack overseas, had already received care at the point of injury and moved through a series of hospitals before arriving at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. While there, they received specialized care and were transported back to the U.S. by deployed members from the 908th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron. That same day, another 908th AES crew, this time based stateside, met them on the ground at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, and took over the final leg of the journey.
From Germany to Maryland to North Carolina, it was a handoff between teammates and Stivers was one of the Airmen ensuring nothing got missed.
“From what I recall, we knew the day before roughly what kind of injuries they had and had time to plan and prepare for the transportation,” he said. “My role was to support the nurses in providing care, and my experience as a paramedic was helpful administering prepared blood products in flight is something we train for, but don’t often do.”
The team had transferred the patients from one aircraft to another, flying through the night to get them to care. It wasn’t a training mission. It was the real thing.
“It was one of those moments where you realize, this is why we train.”
For Stivers that mission hit differently, not just because of what was happening in the air, but because of how far he’d come to get there. His path to into the aeromedical evacuation field didn’t start in a recruiter’s office. It started 10,000 miles away.
“I was working in Antarctica on the science bases,” he said. “The Air Force would come and do all the airlift. I’d see the [aeromedical evacuation] crews come down. I didn’t even know there was a medical mission in the Air Force.”
Between 2015 and 2020, Stivers spent six-month seasons working as a civilian paramedic on remote research bases. One day, he struck up a conversation with now Maj. Maria Stoughton, 18th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron clinical nurse specialist from Kadena Air Base, Japan, who explained she was part of a specialized aeromedical evacuation team responsible for transporting and caring for wounded or ill service members in the air.
“I was selected to be on the last rotation during the 2019-2020 Antarctic summer,” Stoughton said. “The McMurdo Station Medical Clinic is right next to the fire station where Matt worked as a firefighter. We were invited over to the fire station for a tour, and I think that's when I first met Matt, he was one of our tour guides!”
They struck up a conversation about her job, and that moment quietly changed everything.
“She told me about AE and said with my background, I’d be a good fit,” Stivers recalled.
After returning to the U.S., he followed her advice.
“She walked me through the whole process and even told me, ‘Don’t sign anything until I look at it,’” Stivers recalled. “She had been a recruiter before, so she made sure I got the right job, the right contract. Every step of the way, I sent her paperwork and she’d say, ‘Yep, you’re good to go.’”
In August 2020, he enlisted just months after finishing his last Antarctica rotation. By January 2021, he was in Basic Military Training, followed by AE tech school and Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape training.
And in a full-circle moment, Stivers saw her again but this time, as his instructor.
“I was at the AE schoolhouse in Ohio, and there she was,” he said, smiling. “She turned around and went, ‘Oh my God, you're here.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I'm here, I made it!’ That was a really heartwarming moment for me. We had met 10,000 miles away, and now we were back in the same building. That’s when I knew I was where I was meant to be.”
The reunion was more than just a coincidence, it was a visual reminder of how far Stivers had come since their first meeting on the ice. For Stoughton, seeing him step into that room not as a paramedic, but as an Airman, marked the beginning of a new chapter.
“I was excited to see him when he got to the schoolhouse,” she said. “He looked much different. He no longer had his shoulder length hair under a beanie and instead he swapped it for a new military haircut. It was awesome being there to see him start this new career journey and of course, to watch him continue to thrive, wherever he is in the world.”
For Stivers it felt like the final step in a long, winding journey, one that didn’t begin with the military at all. Before he ever wore a uniform, Stivers had already spent years answering emergency calls and living with the weight of high-stakes decisions.
“I’ve been a firefighter paramedic for about 14 years now,” he said. “I started as a federal wild land firefighter out west in Oregon, Northern California, Nevada, and Texas during those big fires in 2011.”
He eventually moved back east to Alabama, where he joined a city fire department before taking on a contract paramedic job that landed him in Antarctica.
Now, as a flight medic with the 908th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, Stivers brings that same experience and mindset into the air. In just two years, he’s flown nearly 400 hours and participated in numerous missions transporting injured service members across the country and globe.
“Stivers is a phenomenal addition to the squadron,” said Tech. Sgt. Avian Shine, 908th AES noncommissioned officer in charge. “Day one of his arrival he made an impact to not only fellow Airmen but also the leaders of this squadron. His knowledge is sought out by all and his character is exactly what we need in the military today.”
The job of an AE technician is more than just clinical care. It’s emotional, logistical, and, at times, deeply human work, the kind that stays with you long after the mission ends. That’s part of what led Stivers to pursue a psychology degree at Auburn University, with plans to help first responders and service members process trauma and stress, something he says was missing when he began his fire career.
“When I started in fire, nobody talked about mental health,” he said. “They taught us how to help others but not how to deal with our own grief, trauma, or stress.”
That’s something he hopes to change.
“I’d like to shift from helping people in crisis to helping the people who respond to crisis,” he said. “It makes a difference when someone understands your background without you having to explain everything first.”
It’s a perspective shaped by lived experience, and it’s why Stivers sees his role as more than just clinical care or flight hours. For him, the heart of the mission is the team.
“He communicates with everyone and is eager to check in on not only his wingmen but any person willing to have him in their life,” said Shine.
That kind of connection inspired Stivers to help strengthen ties across the squadron, even when aircraft availability and mission tempo slowed. Looking for a way to bring people together, he offered up his family’s 600-acre cattle farm as a venue for a survival, evasion, resistance and escape-style field training event.
“We built shelters, started fires, practiced signaling, water collection. All the hands-on survival stuff,” he said. “It gave us a chance to connect, train, and just talk.”
Balancing school, Reserve duties, and a civilian job is no easy task. “AE isn’t really just one weekend a month,” he said. “This week alone we’re flying six days. It’s a lot, but it’s also worth it.”
For anyone considering a late entry into military service, Stivers says it’s never too late to start or to redirect your path.
“If you’re older, like I was, you’re not starting from scratch,” he said. “You’re bringing skills with you. The military can help build on that, make it stronger.”
His advice: know what you want, be open to what comes, and trust that the path might look different than you imagined.
“You never know where a conversation will take you,” he said. “Mine started in Antarctica. A decade later, I’m flying AE missions and helping bring people home.”
He pauses.
“Sometimes the best thing that could happen to you starts in a place you’d never expect.”
| Date Taken: | 12.07.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 12.31.2025 23:53 |
| Story ID: | 555594 |
| Location: | MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA, US |
| Web Views: | 12 |
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This work, From Antarctica to AE: How One Airman Found His Mission in the Skies, by SSgt Erica Webster, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
