Air Force

The 139th Airlift Wing and Mosaic Life Care signed a training agreement on October 2, 2023 at Mosaic Life Care in St. Joseph, Missouri. The agreement will provide medical Airmen with another opportunity to maintain their clinical requirements as medics.

“We have this great resource in our backyard, in St. Joseph, with Mosaic,” said Lt. Col. Joe Lembke, medical plans officer assigned to Detachment 1, 139th Medical Group. “We’re medical professionals, they’re medical professionals, so they extended the invitation to us to come into their teaching hospital and enhance our clinical skills for our medics.”

Per Air Force requirements, each medic needs 40 clinical hours every two years. Medics from the 139th will be present at Mosaic for clinical and trauma training experience on a rotating basis every drill weekend.

“Just by having some of the Missouri Air National Guard medics there, I think will be a big message, or kind of a walking billboard,” said Lembke.

Medics from the 139th will be in Operational Camouflage Pattern (OCP) scrubs which will stand out in the hospital setting.

In the Air National Guard most Airmen are citizen Airmen, meaning they have a civilian occupation as well as a military occupation.

“Whether they’re an accountant or some other profession, as an Air Force medic, they are expected to perform at a proficiency rate,” said Lembke. “This will help bridge that gap of training to enhance our medical skills and their proficiency in providing care.”

This new training agreement is a benefit for the team at Mosaic as well because it provides their nurses with new knowledge and experiences they might not encounter otherwise.

“For the Air Force medics, they’re going to get their training, their proficiency skills, and the amount of hours that are required to be in a clinical setting…and then in return, it’s all about knowledge sharing,” said Lembke.

The 139th Airlift Wing hosts the Sound of Speed Airshow every other year. Nurses from Mosaic help aid in medical care throughout the airshow due to the abundance of guests. This training agreement will assist both the nurses and medics in generating a seamless combined effort throughout future airshows.

The community reach this agreement creates extends further than the city of St. Joseph and its inhabitants.

For their civilian occupation, some of the medics, nurses and nurse practitioners from the 139th work for Mosaic. This includes Mosaic’s other location, Maryville.

“That only helps strengthen that bond and the networking that we need to get in there,” said Lembke.

Many of the nurses at Mosaic attended, or are attending, Missouri Western State University similarly to many of the medics at the 139th. The wing has an extensive history of community involvement with the university.

“A lot of our medics are nursing students at Missouri Western, so again, another resource in our community that we’re utilizing to build partnerships,” said Lembke.

While community engagement, training hours and increased connections are benefits both Mosaic and the 139th will receive through this training agreement, the biggest benefit Airmen will receive is applying their skills and training in real-world scenarios with real patients.

“This is going to help because we don’t do patient care on [drill] weekends and a mannequin can only take you so far. We have good mannequins and simulation labs, but there’s nothing like truly working in a hospital to build those skills,” said Lembke.

Some medical Airmen from the wing are assigned to Detachment 1 of the 139th Medical Group, which is part of the Missouri National Guard Homeland Response Force (HRF). The HRF responds to natural, man-made, or terrorist-initiated disasters, attacks and additional hazards throughout FEMA region 7. Region 7 includes Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska.

“We’ll use the clinical competence skills that Mosaic is going to allow us to learn, and take those skills to a natural disaster or some type of Chemical, Biological, Radiological or Nuclear (CBRN) attack,” said Lembke. “That’s the big picture: honing in on our medic skills and [taking] care of patients in a deployment, or wherever we may be.”

The 139th Medical Group currently has a training agreement with the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas. The training agreement with Mosaic broadens the opportunity for medical Airmen to maintain their currencies.

ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. – What is Halloween anyway?

I know what we do on Halloween, but where did all these traditions come from?

The History Channel tells us Halloween has roots in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated Nov. 1 as a time to honor all saints. Soon, All Saints Day began incorporating some of the traditions of Samhain. The evening before was known as All Hallows Eve, and later Halloween.

The observance came to American in the 1840s with Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine. Borrowing from European traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house-to-house asking for food or money. Over time, Halloween evolved into a day of activities like trick-or-treating, carving jack-o-lanterns, attending festive gatherings, donning costumes and eating treats, a practice that eventually became today’s “trick-or-treat” tradition.

In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers than about ghosts, pranks and witchcraft. At the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season and festive costumes.

Some people get very into preparing for Halloween. They decorate their homes and workplaces extravagantly and choose costumes months in advance, with some even coordinating themes with family, friends or coworkers. Some will even dress their pets in costume.

Safety is probably not the first thing you think about when it comes to Halloween, but maybe it should be. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates an average of 3,200 Halloween-related injuries happen every year.

Here are how the most common injuries break down:

• 55% are related to pumpkin carving.

o If children want to participate in the process, let them scoop out the insides or draw the face instead of letting them handle sharp tools.

• 25% are due to falls while working with decorations, tripping on costumes and walking while trick-or-treating.

o Keep this in mind when decorating and choosing costumes.

• 20% are miscellaneous situations like lacerations, ingestions and other injuries related to costumes, pumpkins, decorations, allergic reactions and rashes.

To help ensure you have a safe holiday, the Food and Drug Administration has compiled a list of Halloween safety tips which can be found at fda.gov.

Costume Safety

• All costumes, wigs and accessories should be fire-resistant.

• After dark, fasten reflective tape to children’s costumes and bags, or give them glow sticks or flashlights.

• Choose nontoxic Halloween makeup instead of masks. Masks can obscure vision.

• Remove all makeup before children go to bed.

• All costumes should fit properly. Avoid those that are too long or baggy.

Decorating

• Use battery-operated lights or glow sticks to prevent fires.

• Pay attention to the placement of decorations.

• Remove obstacles from lawns, steps and porches if you’re expecting trick-or-treaters.

• Use caution on ladders when putting up or taking down decorations.

• Always check lights for broken or cracked sockets, frayed or barbed wires or loose connections. Ensure that damaged lights are properly disposed of.

Safety Tips for Motorists

The National Safety Council offers these additional safety tips for parents and anyone else who plans to be on the road during trick-or-treat hours:

• Watch for children walking on roadways, medians and curbs.

• Enter and exit driveways and alleys carefully.

• At twilight and later in the evening, watch for children in dark clothing.

• Discourage new, inexperienced drivers from driving on Halloween.

So, as you make your Halloween plans, keep safety in mind. Choose costumes that fit and are fire safe, pick decorations that are risk-free, and be extra careful if driving.

Here’s a scary statistic: Children are more than twice as likely to be hit by a car and killed on Halloween than on any other day of the year.

Take care of each other.

GRAND FORKS AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. – Airmen from the 319th Reconnaissance Wing preparing to deploy to several locations across in support of U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command as part of the 24.1 cycle attended a pre-deployment briefing Sept. 27, 2023, here.

The newly implemented Air Force Force Generation model aims to reconstitute manpower, aircraft and equipment into force elements that train, deploy and recover as cohesive units throughout each phase of the 24-month cycle.

The legacy deployment model crowd-sourced individual Airmen and custom packages for deployment requirements, where their first interactions were in-theater. AFFORGEN provides Airmen the opportunity to train together prior to deploying, foster team and unit cohesion before arriving to the fight and shift Airmen’s focus from providing capabilities to providing functionality.

“What matters when you hit the ground of wherever it is you’ll be ending up, is that you’ll be looking out for the people to your left and your right,” said Col. Timothy Monroe, commander for the 319th Reconnaissance Wing. “You are not alone. There are several thousand other Airmen across the world who will be doing the same thing.”

The four phases of AFFORGEN are: reset, prepare, ready and available to commit. The first phase, reset, gives Airmen time to connect with family and friends, take post-deployment leave and reintegrate and reconstitute into their units and day-to-day way of life.

The second phase, prepare, allows squadrons to enhance unit proficiency with advanced and full-spectrum training and build high-end readiness through multi-unit tactics and training events. During prepare, Airmen will also develop cross-functional skills according to the Multi-Capable Airman training framework.

MCA training is critical to the success of the AFFORGEN model and for Agile Combat Employment operations which reduce the number of Airmen required for power projection and reduce the number of personnel in harm’s way.

Phase three, ready, is when Airmen will achieve their peak levels of readiness for the high-end fight. Force elements and demand force teams will participate in joint and local exercises, and bases hosting lead wings will undergo a large force exercise referred to as a certification event.

The fourth phase, available to commit, identifies Airmen as a deployable to support rotational deployments, ready response force requirements or Secretary of Defense taskings.

“Focus on the mission, on your training and on everything you’ve done to prepare you for this moment,” said Chief Master Sgt. Carl Vogel, command chief for the 319th RW. “Your comrades that are staying here will hold the fort while you’re gone. Focus on the fight and coming back home safe.”

The department-wide transition to AFFORGEN provides Combatant Commanders predictable resources and allow smoother integration into joint force environments. The sustainable force offerings also enable ACE concepts which senior leaders have deemed critical to the demands of future conflicts.

“When our Airmen get to their deployments there is a high chance they’ll be asked to do something they have zero training for, and that’s okay,” said Monroe. “What they do have is our trust. Trust in their ability to think critically, think boldly and be decisive.”

Future and current conflicts require Airmen to operate in uncertain, complex and rapidly changing environments. AFFORGEN ensures Airmen have familiar faces on their side providing trust, shared awareness and an understanding of their commander’s intent to guide them through congested and contested environments.

“Our Airmen already have those skills and more,” said Monroe. ‘That’s why they’re part of the world’s greatest Air force.”