News

5th CCG Airmen serve multiple roles in Operation Unified Response

  • Published
  • By Wayne Crenshaw
  • 78th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
5th Combat Communications Group Airmen are on the ground in Haiti and making significant contributions to the relief effort.

Eight members of the unit, part of the 689th Combat Communications Wing, landed in the earthquake-ravaged nation in late January.

Two members are involved with transferring data, via satellite, from reconnaissance aircraft which are surveying the damage. Six are part of a Deployable Initial Communications Element, or DICE.

The DICE's mission is to provide communications for a field hospital, said Capt. Joel Nelson, the team's leader.

The field hospital is at a port and primarily serves as a staging area for patients headed to and from the USNS Comfort, one of the Navy's floating hospitals.

Nelson said the DICE has set up communications with the ship and also with various charitable organizations contributing to the relief effort. Team members have also helped move earthquake victims to the boat for transport to the hospital ship.

"It's been an eye-opening experience ... to come out here and provide humanitarian assistance," he said. "The people are all very friendly and grateful."

Staff Sgt. Trenton Morgan, a satellite communications technician on the team who only recently returned from a deployment to Iraq, volunteered for the mission.

"I just wanted to help out," he said.