MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, Kan. -- He had a severe brain injury and was told he had 24-48 hours to live if he wasn’t evacuated. The Dominican citizen was stuck on the island of Martinique and needed to get to Trinidad and Tobago, which was no quick helicopter ride.
That afternoon, the Regional Security System was able to send a twin-engine airplane to haul him and his doctors to a medical facility equipped to help him.
An ambulance pulled up to the tarmac. Inside laid a stretcher with the man on an orange gurney. There were no lift assets to carry him up. U.S. troops carried him onto the airplane, grabbed tie-down straps and secured the gurney to the aircraft. His doctor required him to have an IV, so they pulled insulation down on the airplane and hung the IV from the ceiling.
“He touched my hand at one point,” said Col. Phil Heseltine, 22nd Air Refueling Wing vice commander. “In that moment, it stopped being a gurney with a body on it, it became a person, a human-being. You can see into his eyes, you can see that he’s hurting.”
The team got him to Trinidad and Tobago. Heseltine said the latest news he had heard was that the man was doing well.
“That’s the U.S. military committed 100 percent to getting this Dominican citizen to Trinidad Tobago,” said Heseltine. “That’s how much the preservation of lives meant to everyone here. We didn’t know him, and we may never meet him again.”
This was just one of the many life-saving missions performed by the Joint Task Force-Leeward Islands in response to Hurricanes Irma and Maria in the Caribbean Islands.
Heseltine recently returned from the humanitarian support deployment to the Leeward Islands, along with hundreds of other U.S. military members, in provision of relief missions. He served for three weeks in a supporting function for the JTF-Leeward Islands as the Joint Air Component Command Element commander.
The JACCE and the rest of the Airmen on the JTF were only a fraction of the relief personnel. Service members from four branches of the military, as well as United States Agency for International Development and Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance supported the Department of State in relief and evacuation efforts.
These agencies, along with U.S. military aircraft were deployed to the eastern Caribbean Islands to help and evacuate those in need.
With no power, less-than-ideal weather and no operational air traffic control tower, this was no easy task. American citizens were scattered across the island of Dominica, trapped in homes with no escape route.
U.S. Marines and Soldiers flew to Dominica from their operating locations at Guadeloupe and Martinique, bringing the CH-53 Stallion, CH-47 Chinook and UH-60 Black Hawk to the fight, providing smaller aircraft for unique air support capabilities for short-range missions.
The JTF worked with the State Department in the search for U.S. citizens in need. Each American found was delivered to the nearest helicopter landing zone whether it be stadium, soccer arena or grassy field.
From these landing zones, helicopters traveled to the Charles-Douglas airport for extraction, which was the only runway on the island that could accommodate the U.S. Air Force C-130 Hercules. There were 145 Americans extracted this way.
The missions required the deployed troops to use what they have learned during practice and work together to create solutions on the spot. This comprehensive readiness and effectiveness would not have been possible without the unity of the relief personnel.
“With little time to prepare before the formation of a JTF, it is critical that we have Airmen trained and ready to provide the crucial airpower component and JTF leadership whenever and wherever needed,” said Gen. David Goldfein, Air Force chief of staff, in his second of three focus-area letters.
Heseltine said this humanitarian deployment was perfect training for future joint tasks, utilizing all aspects of what each branch brings to the fight in the most efficient way possible.
On a day to day basis, the branches of service have many differences. Each branch has different basic trainings, different qualifications and different missions -- ranging from airpower, sea support to infantry. However, all have one common goal: to support and defend the United States of America.
“You don’t necessarily speak the same language,” said Heseltine. “Your mannerisms are different, your approaches to communication are different. But at the end of the day, everyone’s focused on accomplishing one task.”
Without one, the U.S. military would not be as agile as it is.
The same held true on this humanitarian mission.
“Whatever the task force mission at hand was, that was everyone’s mission,” said Heseltine. “It wasn’t an Air Force, Army or Marine mission, etc. It was all hands-on effort, with everyone on-target to find solutions.”
“That’s what a joint task is,” Heseltine added. “It’s taking advantage of all of the different talents in a combined, unified environment to solve a mission.”
When all was said and done, the work of the U.S. Armed Forces, USAID and OFDA the mission was deemed complete on October 5. An estimated 70,500 people were helped total, with more than 150 metric tons of relief supplies such as blankets, water, chlorine, hygiene kits and more and 2,000 Americans returned to safety.
“All of the services in this little task force in the Leeward Islands made it happen,” said Heseltine. “There were rapid, life-saving decisions being made every day that will be told long after the fact.”