Letter: Injured soliders in good hands

Published 4:00 pm Tuesday, January 25, 2005

I would like to add some information regarding evacuation of sick and injured soldiers from Iraq.

The medical personnel on medical evacuation flights are highly trained professionals, with nothing but the care and comfort of their fellow soldiers on their minds. The plane in which Evan McDonald was evacuated to Germany would have had all the equipment on board necessary to deal with his, and any other injured soldiers on board, medical condition, whether respiratory, cardiac, orthopaedic, etc, as well as medical personnel trained to use it (think Airlife).

The same scenario would have taken place on his flight to Walter Reed. C-130s and C-141s are the standard planes used. They are not fancy and, yes, are usually used as cargo planes, but the crews on board these specially equipped planes endure these conditions without complaint on flight after flight, day after day, looking after their comrades.

The plane may not be comfortable, but given the equipment and personnel on board it certainly is not “shabby,” nor is the care. Given Mr. McDonald’s condition, he probably could not have been evacuated on a commercial airline.

I have been on a C-130 and observed the personnel getting ready to do a training exercise. Why? My daughter, Tami Rougeau, Lt. Col, USAF Res., is a flight nurse, flight nurse trainer and examiner, and is an Individual Mobilization Augmentee, meaning she sets up the protocol to get injured, and deceased, soldiers home.

She was deployed last year in this capacity. Before she returned home she spent two weeks traveling, by C-130 and Humvee, inspecting and training at medical units throughout the Middle East, not just in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Our sick and injured are in good hands.

Mr. McDonald, his family, as well as all of our military personnel and their families, are in my prayers every day.

In addition to my daughter, her husband is also serving as an Air Force Reserve C-5 pilot. I, too, will contact Rep. Greg Walden, not to complain, but to recommend he contact my daughter to get “the other side of the story.”

Carlene Johnston

John Day