MAK-AIRS

Missouri Air Guard leads medical training event for southeast Missouri community

By: Lt. Sean Navarro
mo.ngpao@mail.mil
Published: 3/14/2017
 

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – The Missouri Air National Guard’s 131st Bomb Wing will lead Operation Healthy Delta 2017, a medical Innovative Readiness Training (IRT) exercise where around 5,000 citizens of southeast Missouri and the surrounding communities are expected to receive services at no-cost.

About 250 service members are expected to participate, including units from the Missouri Air National Guard, the New Jersey Air National Guard’s 108th Air Refueling Wing, the New York Air National Guard’s 109th Airlift Wing and the Navy Reserve, and will partner with the Delta Regional Authority.

The medical focus of Operation Healthy Delta means that Bootheel region communities will be able to receive routine health exams, routine dental services (including dental extractions) and optometry services.

“We will have two clinic sites, one in Charleston and one in Caruthersville, that will provide services,” said Maj. James Miller from the 131st Medical Group and officer-in-charge for the operation. “This gives providers a chance to conduct valuable training that is essential to their medical and operational skills in field-like conditions.”

Because of the scale of the training, service members in other military jobs will be able to participate, including finance, logistics, public affairs, security, communications, services and transportation.

“We usually train using simulated situations,” said Miller. “This operation will help us apply our training from set-up to tear-down, while providing services to real people in our community.”

The IRT program provides high quality training opportunities for active, Guard and Reserve service members while helping to meet the country’s civil needs. Missions can focus on engineering and medical specialties.

For more information on the IRT program, visit http://irt.defense.gov/.