RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, GERMANY--Five 177th Fighter Wing Airmen were on special assignment during their Germany annual training.
Master Sgt. Harry Waugh, Tech. Sgts. Melissa Blackledge and Marie Paggi, along with Staff Sgts. Chantel Bullock and Valerie Chiola, all member of the 177th Medical Group, were assigned to the contingency aerospace staging facility July 28, 2009.
“The CASF is responsible for transporting Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom wounded warriors from the Flightline to the hospital then to the flight line when they are sent back to the United States,” said Senior Airman Liam Velez, a CASF medical technician assigned to the 86th Medical Group.
More than 65,000 wounded Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors and Marines have passed through Ramstein.
In the morning Waugh, Blackledge, Paggi, Bullock and Chiola were prepared for their duties by undergoing refresher training transporting volunteers around on stretchers.
While all this may seem basic – lifting, moving and loading, it has a direct impact on those being transported.
That training was tested at noon when the New Jersey Air National Guard Airmen were assigned to moving a group of wounded warriors.
The 177th team moved the injured warriors from the CASF building to a bus specially designed to carry stretcher-borne patients. They were then driven to the Ramstein Flightline where they were loaded onto a C-17 Globemaster III attached to the 172nd Airlift Wing, Mississippi Air National Guard.
The 177th Airmen joined active-duty Air Force and Marines in lifting and carrying the wounded warriors from the bus and onto the aircraft.
Afterward, the entire CASF team gathered together at the bottom of the C-17 to cheer for the warriors.
“It was an honor to help get the wounded home,” said Waugh.