11:38 GMT, November 25, 2008 JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq | Iraqi airmen conducted an aeromedical evacuation mission from here Nov. 21, ferrying an Iraqi servicemember injured in combat from the Air Force Theater Hospital here to Forward Operating Base Gabe in Baqubah, Iraq.

"Aeromedical evacuation is crucial to the viability of the Iraqi air force," said Col. (Dr.) Paul Young, the Coalition Air Forces Training Team surgeon general and director of Iraqi Air Forces Aeromedical Services Training. "We're here in an advisory role to help the Iraqi air force create an aeromedical evacuation program that they're comfortable with and one that works for them."

The patient arrived at the hospital Nov. 16 with a gunshot wound to his leg. Surgeons stabilized him and treated him in the intermediate care ward until he was ready to transport. An ambulance carried the patient to the flightline here, where American and Iraqi airmen loaded him into a waiting Mi-17 Hip helicopter.

This aeromedical evacuation mission follows a visit from two Iraq Ministry of Defense doctors to the hospital and to the Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility here recently to study U.S. Air Force aeromedical evacuation procedures as the Iraqi air force continues to re-establish its own aeromedical evacuation service.