Officials aren’t sure how rare the all-female medevac crew is, but it's a rarity the co is proud of
All-female Medical Evacuation Crew Makes History
COB ADDER, Dec. 1, 2009 – Four soldiers serving here with the New Hampshire NG earned a special distinction last week when they became their co’s first all-female medical evacuation crew.
In the 3 days before Thanksgiving, Capt. Trish Barker, Chief Warrant Officer Andrea Galatian, Staff Sgt. Misty Seward and Sgt. Debra Lukan, comprised one of the on-alert crews for TF Keystone. Officials aren’t sure how rare the all-female medevac crew is, but it’s a rarity the co is proud of.
The odds are slim for such a crew to come up on rotation, said Army Maj. David Mattimore, cmdr of C Co, 3-238th Medevac. “It wouldn’t have been possible until one of our avionics sgts became a crew chief,” he said. That crew chief also is the newest name on the flight roster: Lukan, 43, enlisted following 9/11. “I just barely made the age cutoff,” she said of her age.
Lukan trained as an avionics mechanic, and just recently switched from the shop to flight crew. She deployed to Camp Speicher and Tikrit from 2005 to 2006 and served in the avionics field. She’s happy to be on the flight rotation this time, she said. “My family doesn’t know I’m flying,” she said. “They worry a lot, but I suppose I’ll have to tell them eventually.”
Seward, 30, agreed with Galation on the uniqueness of the crew. “Same for me,” she said. “Never flew with an all-girl crew.” In fact, with a total of 9 deployments among them and between 8 and 12 years of service apiece, this still is a first-time experience for the entire crew, Barker, the ops officer, said.
Galatian enlisted in 1997 and served 5 years as an administrative clerk before going to flight school in 2002. She has served seven years as a pilot, including a deployment to Bosnia in 2005.
Barker, 30, enlisted in 1999 as an aircraft fueler. She went to Officer Candidate School in 2003 and Flight School in 2004. She was deployed to Bosnia in 2005 as a medevac section leader.
“It may be months before this crew comes up in the rotation again,” Mattimore said. “We only have 9 female flight crew members, and everyone rotates to our remote bases, so the odds of them being back together again are low.”
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