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 a base familiar with the Military Airlift Command and its
 mission. This resulted in a very smooth operation with
 respect to coordination with base airlift personnel
 Although they did a superb job with what was available,
 Ramstein AB was not able to fully support the large numbers
 of personnel deployed there. Many Ramstein AECC personnel
 were housed at three different bases (Ramstein AB, Kapaun
 AB, and Vogelweh AB) and personnel at Ramstein AB were
 housed at both the North and South sides of the base. This
 caused some transportation difficulties and a morale problem
 as per diem rates were significantly different on the bases
 where aeromedical evacuation personnel were billeted.
 Although all medical crewmembers were billeted in nice hard
 quarters, all medical crewmembers had to share a room and
 were not billeted in a crew only area. Some medical
 crewmembers were, therefore, exposed to noise affecting crew
 rest. The billeting conditions of our medical crewmembers
 were excellent, however, when compared to those at some .
 other locations. Communications are the key to a successful
 aeromedical evacuation operation, and the communications at
 Ramstein AB were excellent. We bad access to most all
 necessary communications equipment needed to support the
 mission such as beepers, KL-43s, a secure telephone,
 sufficient telephones, land mobile radios, and a FAX
 machine. Managing unregulated patients in the aeromedical
 evacuation system is a major issue. We need to either plan
 to move large numbers of unregulated patients or make
 patient regulating more efficient. Medical regulators did
 not use wartime regulating when regulating patients to CONUS
 causing delays in moving patients from contingency medical
 facilities. The wartime and peacetime regulating system
 should be similar so that transition can be made easily. A
 very important area identified in this operation relates to
 the training of our aeromedical evacuation personnel. Air
 Force aeromedical evacuation crewmember must be trained to
 be able to perform equally well on the ground in tactical
 situations or as medical crewmembers in the predominate
 tactical and strategic aircraft, i.e., C-130s and C-141s.
 Medical Service Corps and Nurse Corps officers and adminis-
 trative and aeromedical technician personnel must be able to -
 perform as managers in an AECC or AECE, and MSCs in an AELT,
 equally well. We must train them fully in tactical and
 strategic aeromedical evacuation operations. These issues
 have been revealed over and over in prior operations and
 exercises during the 1980s. Aeromedical evacuation did not
 operate under the standard concept of operations in USAFE.
 The Director of Base Medical Services (DBMS), who gave his
 full support, was put in charge of aeromedical evacuation
 units on Ramstein AB, contrary to Air Force regulations.
 This caused confusion as the Ramstein AB  AECE Commander was
 receiving uncoordinated directions from the HQ USAFE/SG's
 office, the Theater AECC in the Operations Support Center at
 Ramstein AB, the Ramstein AB Clinic Commander, the Ramstein
 AB ASF Commander, the Central AECC Commander at Rhein Main
 AB, and the Commander 2 AES at Rhein Main AB. Now is the -
 

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