Silver Flag hosts EMEDS training

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Christopher Reel
  • 325th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  Tyndall's Silver Flag Training site, home of Detachment 1, 823rd RED HORSE Squadron, is now home to the Air Force Medical Services Bare-base Expeditionary Medical Support sustainment training program.

The mission of an EMEDS package is to rapidly deploy and provided forward stabilization medical care to war fighters and civilians when authorized. The EMEDS Basic package refers to the operational medical support required to provide medical care to a single bed-down with a population-at-risk of 1 to 3,000 people.

In addition, the EMEDS Basic also provides the capabilities for medical command and control, preventive medicine, trauma resuscitation and stabilization, and limited general and orthopedic surgery. Critical care, primary care, aeromedical evacuation coordination, urgent care, and dental are also capabilities provided.

Silver Flag hosts 25 Medical Airmen from 17 different Air Force Specialty Codes (ranging from administrative support to skilled surgeons) 10 times a year. While here they complete a required a seven-day course and participate in the field training exercise "SILVER STEED" with up to 250 civil engineers, force support members and comptroller students. The training they receive prepares them to provide medical care for Expeditionary Forces in contingency and humanitarian relief operations.

The student's mission while at Silver Flag is to deploy, erect, populate, fully operate, and redeploy an EMEDS Basic package. The Airmen are put under austere conditions where the only resource they receive is their Airman's Manual, EMEDS package, and Base Operational Support provided by the Civil Engineer Squadron and Force Support Squadron AFSC's.

"It is this integrated training that sets EMEDS bare-base training apart from the rest of the AFMS EMEDS training sites. No where else in the Air Force will medics get training on how to operate an EMEDS package alongside their BOS support team," said Captain Brett Mazey, Detachment 1, 823 REDHORSE chief medical operations.

"The goal of the program is for EMEDS teams to complete assigned core mission essential task list under a deployed setting, with a fully operational EMEDS package and with little to no simulations," added Captain Mazey. "To accomplish this goal, medical personnel need to work alongside their support teams. This type of training can only be accomplished at Silver Flag."

They are given their military essential task lists which include, but are not limited to, accountability reporting to Personnel Support for Contingency Operations, site surveys, food services inspections and water sources, operate all medical equipment, perform medical evacuations, and grid coordinate plotting. Silver Flag provides this environment for medics to hone their expeditionary operational and planning skill sets.

"The addition of EMEDS has built a lot of synergy into the Silver Flag program. The symbiotic relationship between Medical and Mission Support Group forces allows for greater realism of the exercise. An example would be a first-responder-firefighter relaying treatment of a victim to the EMEDS triage," said Major Jack Wheeldon III, 823rd REDHORSE commander.

At the end of the seven day, 70 hour, training course medical students will have to deploy and redeploy a total of 4 tons of medical supplies and equipment, complete over 200 METLs, participate in 40 integrated exercise scenarios with CE and FSS, learn basic convoy operations, complete an improvised explosive device lane course, Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle rollover trainer, and team training.

"Our medical components know how to do their job," said Captain Mazey. "With the EMEDS exercise, we teach them to think outside the box and to utilize their resources. We teach them how to improve their performance with only having the basics while adding the fog of war to the scenarios. The scenarios themselves aren't challenging, but we arrange them so the Airmen have to time manage or get hung up with patient work load."