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File: aaacf_128.txt
Page: 128
Total Pages: 273

dental care, follow-up on irregular PAP results, adding more sophisticated 
equipment beyond "austere but adequate," and patient tracking within the 
aeromedical system, to mention a few. Several of these issues defied solution 
during Phase II. One, though, took a great deal of work by Colonel Melchiorre. 
He successfully worked a project to add at least one more dentist and dental 
chair to each ATH. The equipment and supply part of this issue was more easily 
solved than the manpower aspects. Suffice it to say, a long term deployment must 
address peacetime force sustainment issues. 
 
	Further, our medical personnel faced the tedium and boredom, the waiting 
for something to happen, concern about family at home, in many instances concern 
about skills going rusty for lack of a wartime workload, and interest in a 
rotation policy, many concerns shared by the people they served. The challenges 
of a long deployment can test the best of leaders. 
 
	Besides training and readiness, one of the Surgeon's Office's operational 
goals was to cross level ATHs and move more capability forward. Adjustments were 
to be made to provide manning for the contingency hospital and move assets or 
parts of assets further north. These plans were never executed for in the first 
week of November the President announced plans to prepare for offensive 
operations when the U.N. gave the Iraqi's a January ultimatum to leave Kuwait. 
 
 
 
 
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