FORT MCCOY, Wis. — Born in Lackland Air Force Base, Texas she was destined serve in the military. She was a member of a military oriented family and brought up as an Air Force brat.
Col. Janet Moore-Harbert, commander of the 446th Aero-medical Evacuation Squadron, has been able to take her past and use it to progress in the present. She started out just being interested in the medical field when she made the choice to achieve her Bachelors degree in nursing.
Sticking with family tradition Col. Moore-Harbert and her brother both joined the service. Her brother James Moore joined the U.S. Navy, while she chose to follow a different path leading her into the Air Force.
Her first duty assignment was Scott Air Force Base, Ill. where she stayed until departing for flight school and then Turkey. She departed Turkey for the Rhein-main Air Force Base, now inactivated, for over three years.
Col. Moore-Harbert left active duty after eight years and six months service to get married. It was not long after that she joined the Air Force Reserves working in a full-time position.
Col. Moore-Harbart has now served almost 30 years and is currently in command of over 300 soldiers for the Global Medic 2009 training exercise. The 300 Soldiers are divided throughout three separate bases, Fort Gordon, Ga., Fort Hunter-Liggett, Calif. and here at Fort McCoy, Wis.
This is not her first time in command of an exercise of this nature. During 2005 she was part of the Reserve Command 05', which Col. Moore-Harbert said was a really good exercise to put a footprint into the exercise.
When these exercises started, there were not joint operations like we are seeing here first hand said Col. Moore-Harbert. "It was in 2007 at Fort Gordon when we started working with the Army and by 2008 we had all branches getting involved."
The Global Medic 2009 focus on the west coast at Fort Hunter-Liggett is for the Air Forces Patriot Hook, an airlift control exercise and Hydra, an airdrop exercise. "There are three separate exercises going for Global Medic 2009, but generally most are geared toward flying injured troops back to stateside," said Col. Moore-Harbert.
There is a wealth of knowledge from out there between people getting into the military and people getting out, said Col. Moore-Harbert. "We have the most successful stories versus the Vietnam War or Desert Storm because we aren't losing anywhere near the amount of troops and we are accomplishing our mission."