Multinational exercise in Croatia wraps up

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Tammie Moore
  • MEDCEUR Public Affairs
DIVULJE TRAINING BASE, Croatia (AFPN) --  Croatia hosted the closing ceremony for the 2008 Medical Training Exercise in Central and Eastern Europe, or MEDCEUR, here May 14.

MEDCEUR is a Joint Chiefs of Staff regional, multilateral exercise sponsored by U.S. European Command. The exercise provides an opportunity for medical people to share expertise with their central and eastern European regional counterparts. Croatia hosted the 2008 exercise in support of the Partnership for Peace initiative May 2 through 14.

The exercise began with a week of readiness classes and was followed by an evaluated response to a simulated earthquake.

"Everybody did very well," said Tech. Sgt. Mike Copland, assigned to the 458th Expeditionary Medical Squadron.  Sergeant Copland is an expeditionary medical support instructor who is deployed here from the U.S. School of Aerospace Medicine in San Antonio. 

"The players spent the first day trying to figure out what was going on, like in most exercises," he  said.  "The second day, everyone was working well as a team and by the third day, operations were perfect.  That last day, we threw every possible scenario we could at them and they handled it flawlessly."

Lt. Gen. Rod Bishop, 3rd Air Force commander from Ramstein Air Base, Germany, had the opportunity to watch the military medics put their training into action the final day of the exercise.

"This opportunity to work together and practice together was great," General Bishop said. "It was a wonderful opportunity for medical people from different nations to train together and work on interoperability in a type of training event that could mirror future operations."

More than 50 instructors provided approximately 300 medical professionals 380 hours of education during the exercise.

The director of Croatian military forces, Lt. Col. Mario Gjuric, said the exercise was a huge success. 

"This was a great chance for everyone to come together and learn how to operate as one team," he said. "The knowledge shared here will save lives in the future. We are very proud we were able to host MEDCEUR and be a part of this Partnership for Peace initiative." 

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