Written by Sgt. Shanika Futrell
159th Combat Aviation Brigade Public Affairs
Kandahar, Afghanistan – After approximately 30 days of technical training, Afghan Air Force flight medic Sgt. Gulap Ahmadzia received a certificate of completion, July 27th, from Company C, 1st Battalion, 52nd Aviation Regiment, for his participation of the U.S. Army and Afghanistan air force medical evacuation partnership program here.
Ahmadzia flew as a flight medic aboard a UH-60A Blackhawk during 13 medevac missions involving Afghan National Army and local national casualties from June 22nd to July 13th.
Maj. Michael Mendenhall, the company commander for C/1-52, said Ahmadzia has been extremely receptive to the information his soldiers were providing him, making the partnership program successful.
“Sgt. Gulap Ahmadzia has done an outstanding job in such a limited amount of time,” said Mendenhall. “We enjoyed working with him, and we hope the information he has learned from us will be used to teach other flight medics to save lives.”
Saving lives is what this training was all about.
Ahmadzia said he was happy and excited he was able to learn how to apply a tourniquet and use technical medical equipment.
“Now I am able to help my people when they are injured,” he said.
Ahmadzia says the knowledge he has gained by working with C/1-52 will be useful to all of his fellow medics.
“It is very important the other medics have the opportunity (to learn) to what I have been (taught),” said Ahmadzia. “We don’t do this for us, but for our people. We need to know how to help them, so this is why I learned how to treat casualties and why I will now (become) the instructor.”
