More than Airmen: services are combining forces, blurring the lines between Airmen, Marines, Soldiers and Sailors

Airman, Sept, 2004 by Orville F. Desjarlais, Jr.

Medical alliance

Joint doctrine historically calls for each service to treat its own wounded. But like the special ups world, the services have worked together to ensure only the best care, according to Betty Anne Mauger, chief, media, plans and programs, Office of the Air Force Surgeon General at Bulling Air Force Base. D.C.

"For example, a smaller facility of one service can, and will, transfer patients to a larger facility managed by a sister service in order to ensure the military member receives the best care possible," she said.

Also, the Joint Readiness Clinical Advisory Board promotes the use of interoperable equipment and has developed a common user database for equipment. supplies and other readiness elements. This reduces logistical requirements, shortens training and lowers costs.

The medical community is considering forming core medical and surgical teams in each service with identical equipment and capabilities. On service may be responsible for first-response care, while an-other handles theater hospital and trauma center requirements. Training that emphasizes jointness may also be on the horizon.

Space and beyond

From Desert Storm to recent operations in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom, military operations depend increasingly on space capabilities. Many space systems critical to the warfighter fall largely within the area of space force, which plays a supporting role with communications, positioning and timing, missile warning and environment monitoring.

Space and missile capabilities allow combatant commanders to "shorten the kill chain." Flowing through Air Force space forces, key information is sent directly to the battlefield, providing location data to Global Positioning System receivers in tanks, messages to hardened portable computers with the troops and satellite images to weather stations set up on the front lines.

Navy and Marines, too

When Air Force F-117s launched the first air strike on Iraq in March 2003, they had assistance from the Navy. Three Navy EA-6B Prowler reconnaissance aircraft linked up with Night Hawks at a refueling aircraft. They went along to keep an eye out for Air Force pilots flying the strike mission.

It wasn't the first time the Navy and Air Force teamed to launch a major attack. Since Jimmy Doolittle launched an armada of B-25 bombers from the decks of a Navy aircraft carrier, the two services have strived to work hand-in-hand to control the skies and the seas.

Most of the obvious joint Navy-Marine-Air Force action is occurring in the training arena. At Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, for example, a joint-service cadre of navigation instructors put the services' would-be navigators through the same training missions to prepare them for the day when they get in the cockpit.

Airmen attend Naval War College or train with counterparts on ships at sea and at various air stations and bases. From firefighting to public affairs and other skills, Airmen sit side-by-side with Sailors in training environments.

But the two services have also teamed up on operational issues. Tactical radios, unmanned aerial vehicles and joint direct attack munitions are all examples of warfighting programs where the two services have reduced redundancies by sharing knowledge and skills and working together.