2 AES MEDICAL AFTER ACTION REPORT FOR EUROPEAN

File: aabpg_09.txt
Page: 09
Total Pages: 18

reality. UTCs, once the generalized recall of the Reserves and
National Guard started, were split and fragmented. In some instances,
personnel were recalled to their respective units, then activated and
sent to different locations from were they had been for up to several
months. In other cases, personnel deployed in volunteer status were
included in UTCs that were sent to different locations but these
personnel were activated in place and not allowed to go to where their
UTCs were sent . This helped to accentuate the manning problems and the
Command and Control problems. Also at times personnelwere not
informed where they were going until they were on board of the aircraft
leaving the states. Once activated, the Reserves were assigned to
their respective bases in the United States and sent TDY to their
actual duty stations. This further accentuated the problems in Command
and Control.

(3) The War Plans were not followed by anyone. This created
problems in movements of patients because of the difficulty and confusion of what "system" was being utilized: the "peacetime system"
or the "wartime system". This confusion could have been eliminated if
all elements of the system were in the same mode of operation. For
example, the Patient Airlift Center never went to a wartime footing and
continued to require certain peacetime information that was impossible
for the TAECC tyo provide following the Concept of Operations developed
for EUCOM in support of Desert Storm. One example was the Patient
Airlift Centers demand for a manifest within the peacetime limits of
eighteen to nine hours prior to the departure of a stateside mission.
According to the EUCOM Concept of Operations we were following, the
patients were not to arrive at the Aeromedical Staging Facilities
(ASFs) until four to six hours prior to mission departure and the
manifests were not strated until the patients arrived at the ASFs.
Even though we could and in most cases did provide a manifest within
two to four hours after the departure of the mission, this was not
acceptable to the Patient Airlift Center and numerous hours were spent
explaining why we could not provide information that was not available
for us to provide. Another example was the Joint Medical Regulating
Office (JMRO) was using two system for the regulation of patients
One for the patients that were being being regulated in Europe for movement
between hospitals and CONUS, and one for the movement of patients from
the AOR to EUCOM to CONUS. This created difficulty in tracking and
coordinating patient movement between the regional AECCs and from EUCOM
to CONUS. There were two systems in use but we were operating under
one.

(4) No provisional squadron or units were established. This
created numerous personnel problems for all of the commanders of the
different regional aeromedical evacuation control centers. Without
having the jurisdiction of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the
commanders had problems ranging from Article 15s to offences that could
have resulted in Court Martial. One example was the return of an Air
National Guard Unit to home without authority or permission.
They did not clear the base nor any other agency. This type of action
could not have occured if the Commander had UCMJ jurisdiction.

(5) There was not a single headquarters or DOD level that