Photo By Master Sgt. Luke Johnson | Senior Airman William Williamson with the 445th Force Support Squadron,...... read more read more
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KODIAK, ALASKA- After long hours serving the citizens of Kodiak Island during ARCTIC CARE 2017, medical providers and support personnel are welcomed with a hot meal when they return from work, boosting morale.
“My job here is to provide food for the medics and make sure that they have a place to sleep,” said Staff Sgt. Gerald Woodard with the 445th Force Support Squadron (FSS) from Wright Patterson Air Force Base. “Me and my team have a good routine going on, and it's really about the bigger picture here. I’m really happy to be supporting that.”
Long before the medical providers and other personnel arrived, Woodard and his team built tent city and made sure it was ready to go before the medical and support teams arrived.
“We had to build up 12 tents and fully supply them with heat, lining, the floor, staking them down to make sure they don’t blow away in the strong Alaskan winds,” said Woodard. “The preparation to get things going took about a week, but it was well worth it.”
ARCTIC CARE 2017 is an excellent proving ground for services and support personnel as the weather and geographical location of Kodiak Island provides plenty of challenges to overcome.
“This is good training for a deployment because this is a real world situation,” said Woodward. “Everyday out here in this environment, with the weather, we have to adjust on the fly. The main goal is to make sure people have a place to sleep and are fed on time, so they can go out and attack their mission to take care of everybody and the animals here on the island.”
Another advantage to ARCTIC CARE 2017 for services Airmen is the ability to work and train with support personnel from the other military service branches.
“We are out here with Navy, Marines, and Army. It’s all of us out here working as a team in order to complete one mission. A lot of people get it confused that we are against one another, but we are all doing this together,” said Woodard.
Services Airmen are also providing support to all of the medical teams that have been assigned to some of the various villages on Kodiak Island.
“I feel like it's important because everybody has to eat, you really can't complete a mission when you are starving,” said Staff Sgt. Stephan Hall with the 445th FSS, who is providing support in Port Lions on Kodiak Island. “Here in the cold, having a hot meal is something that you can count on, and it feels good to me to help people relax after a long day.”
Services Airmen take great pride in ensuring that the services they provide keep morale high and the mission going.
“We want to make sure morale is boosted up and everyone is taken care of,” said Staff Sgt. Jermaine Wade with the 445th FSS.
ARCTIC CARE 2017 is part of the Innovative Readiness Training program, which is an Office of Secretary of Defense sponsored civil-military collaboration intended to build mutually beneficial partnerships between U.S. communities and the DoD. ARCTIC CARE 2017 provides training opportunities for U.S. military (Active, Guard, Reserve) and Canadian Health service members to prepare for worldwide deployment while supporting the needs of underserved communities on Kodiak Island, Alaska.
| Date Taken: | 04.04.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 04.06.2017 20:13 |
| Story ID: | 229143 |
| Location: | KODIAK, ALASKA, US |
| Web Views: | 233 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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