On Monday I stood my first MEDEVAC alert. Basically, the way we set up here is that we have four alert crews: 1st up, 2nd up, 3rd up, and 4th up. 1st and 2nd are both on 15-minute alert. That means these crews are required to be airborne within 15 minutes of receiving the MEDEVAC alert. 3rd and 4th up are on 60-minute alert. All four crews hold the alert for 25 hours. (24 hour duty plus an extra hour while the oncoming crews preflight and brief).
Getting airborne in 15 minutes is extremely quick, a lot faster than it sounds. Keep in mind that this is a 24-hour duty, so you may be fast asleep when you get the call. Then you need to get up, get dressed, get all your flight gear and weapons on (which takes a while, especially for MEDEVACs into Iraq), get briefed on the mission, run out to the aircraft, start it, and takeoff. For obvious reasons, 1st and 2nd up crews are required to sleep here at the squadron.
On the first day, my crew was called for one day MEDEVAC into Iraq. That one was pretty routine. We just had to move a U.S. serviceman from Iraq down to a military airport in Kuwait for transfer to Germany. I don't think he was hurt that badly.
I am actually on 2nd up right now, but haven't had any calls today, but you never know. With my luck they'll call one away while I'm fast asleep.
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