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File: aacad_09.txtLesson's Learned -Take a First Sergeant or suitable substitute - We had major problems with personnel adapting to the harsh environment and dealing with homesickness, short tempers, personality conflicts, fear, and overall stress. It took alot to adapt to the environment there and a first sgt was a must...we did not have one and needed one full time, we shared CES's for a few months but he definitely looked out for his own people and slacked on ours, we tried our own several times but circumstances occurred such as departures, conflict, and not having a capable individual trained or willing to try to take on the responsibility and it hurt. The younger troops really needed a shoulder they could lean on and the commander and myself were not appropriate yet tried to comfort in a limited capacity...A full time individual with no other duties is absolutely called for. - Order Equipment Needed ASAP - Time was not on our side. The beauracracy still existed even in war on the big money items like the ones mentioned before for the dining ball. Funding was no problem for anything, but it took a month for our list to get approved and at least two months after that for the arrival. Order immediately. - Limit Dining Hall Hours - We started out slowly by having two hour meal periods but eventually with increased shifts and changes we expanded hours but never served midnight, it would have been difficult with our resources. F. Mortuary Affairs really only came into play twice for us at KKMC. The first was an F-16 crash in the middle of the desert north of Hafer Al Baten, or about 100 KM from tent city-it was remote. I was briefed in the middle of the night by Col Vanmeter and we were on the road by 0400. We searched for hours driving through the desert in two Jeep Cherokees, I brought another individual for HR recovery , a fire dept. guy, two EOD folks and a medic. We finally found the site at about 0930 to find it surrounded by 4 MPs with about a 800 yard radius. A medical team of 5 personnel was there from King Fahd, the home unit of the Hill aircraft, they arrived by helicopter. We all performed a Search and Recovery and recovered approx 40 lbs that day. I sent the FOD guys back to KKMC and told them to send a SR team but the team was lost in the sandstorm and never made it to the sight. I returned the next day and day after that to recover what was left. The remains were placed in a refer at our morgue, inventoried by the flight surgeon from King Fahd who signed the death certificate, and the remains were transferred to Daharan via the Bateen Star. The other aircraft accident fatality we had involved an A-10 at our airfield upon his return from hostilities. Major problems resulted in this Search and Recovery involving our airfield neighbors the Army medical group. They
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