Alaska National Guard

Alabama Medical Mission Winds Down for Alaska Air National Guard

The Alaska Air National Guard only helped staff a health clinic in Hayneville, Ala. for a week -- but for patients in the small, rural town it’s made a world of difference.

They were beneficiaries of the U.S. Defense Department’s Innovative Readiness Training program, which sends medical professionals to unfamiliar places and pairs them up with people they’ve never worked with before, to simulate what would happen in a real crisis.

A total of 70 service members were involved. Half were from Alaska, with 25 from the Guard’s 176th Medical Group. In this case, the setting was a town hall converted into a medical facility, tasked with offering a wide range of services.

“The response from the townspeople to the work we’ve been doing down here has been tremendous,” says Capt. John Callahan. “Once the word got around, holy cow, it was hard to keep people out of that clinic. In only seven-and-a-half days of operation, we’ve seen more than a thousand people.”

Besides general medical care, patients could also get eye exams and new glasses, dental work, prescriptions, dietary advice and mental health counseling.

Each day, when the clinic opened, there was a long line of people waiting for care -- most without health insurance.   

“One of the things I’ve been deeply impressed with is just how grateful and humble the people are,” said Lt. Col. John Boston, an internal medicine physician from Wasilla. Boston says the experience has reawakened his passion for healing.

“Sometimes doctors get in a certain rut and routine, and it’s nice to break out of that and get back to the whole reason why we went to medical school,” says Boston. “We wanted to make a difference in people’s lives.” 

Boston says he will return home a better doctor, with more awareness of how much medications cost -- especially important when patients must pay for them out of their own pocket. Boston says most of his patients in Alaska have insurance and their drugs are covered, so until now, he never did much research on alternative medications.

Boston was shocked to learn that many of the patients in Hayneville had been prescribed medicines at other clinics but couldn’t afford to buy them, rendering the prescriptions useless. He says the medical team identified cheaper substitutes for the patients and worked with local pharmacies to connect them to programs to help cover some of the costs.

Coast Guard assists Alaska National Guard to rescue two after ...

CORDOVA, Alaska - Petty Officer 2nd Class Joshua McCarthy, left, carries gear from a downed small plane to a Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter while Petty Officer 1st Class Scott Gordon, center, talks to one of the two passengers of the aircraft while Lt. Jesse Wright, right, waits for them in the helicopter on the beach at Kayak Island 62 miles southeast from Cordova May 8, 2011.

The Coast Guard crew, forward deployed to Cordova from Kodiak, rescued the two men and returned them to Cordova.

U.S. Coast Guard photo by Lt. Jon Bartel.

CORDOVA, Alaska - Two men signal a Coast

This is the second small plane crash the

U.S. Coast Guard photo by Lt. Jon Bartel.

Report to the Secretary of the Interior

The Alaska Almanac, Facts about Alaska

Report of the Alaska National Guard Board of Inquiry, reviewing the general working atmosphere within the Alaska National Guard, including the policies of those in command

Alaska at War, 1941-1945, The Forgotten War Remembered

The American home guard, the state militia in the twentieth century