Those few are the inspirational, the proud and the patriotic – the ones the U.S. Air Force’s 332nd Expeditionary Aeromedical Evacuation Flight remember as they transport patients from forward operating bases through Joint Base Balad and, finally, to a medical facility outside of Iraq.

Air Force major finds her calling through a young Soldier

Though she has been a nurse in other capacities – working in neonatal, recovery rooms, intensive care units and emergency rooms – for many decades, Maj. Marty Maddox, 332nd EAEF flight nurse, is relatively new to the aeromedical evacuation mission, having only two years experience as a flight nurse. Before arriving at JBB for her current deployment, Maddox’s first deployment experience as a flight nurse was a short stint transporting patients out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

A reservist deployed from the 36th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron at Pope Air Force Base, N.C., Maddox and her medical crew transported some patients through Germany before taking them back to the U.S. for advanced medical care.

While flying from Germany to the U.S. with 57 patients during her first deployment, Maddox and the rest of the crew were able to chat with their patients throughout the long flight.

The medical crew really got to know the patients –where they came from and what they did, she said. One patient in particular, a 23-year-old Soldier, helped the major see that being a flight nurse was her calling.

The patient had already lost one leg, and “they were trying to save his other leg. He was missing some of [his] fingers, and we were trying to save his thumb,” Maddox said. “He was just the bravest young Army Soldier.”

The Soldier’s mother flew to Germany for her son then managed to get on the flight with him back to the U.S.

“We got to know him; we got to know his mom… He cried, I cried, his mom cried,” Maddox recalled. “That really got to me. That’s when I knew I had gotten into the right line of work - that being a flight nurse was truly going to be something I wanted it to be because we’re doing something good. Because we’re getting these Airmen, Soldiers, Sailors and Marines back home.

“I will never forget him,” she said of the Soldier she saw that day.

Senior airman remembered, served Memorial Day

Senior Airman Nicole Caldwell, a 332nd EAEF aeromedical evacuation technician also deployed from the 36th AES at Pope AFB, is on her first deployment since joining the Air Force 23 months ago. The single mother of two girls says her most-memorable mission was being able to fly on Memorial Day, a meaningful day for her and her country.

“Just being able to fly on that day – bringing back wounded Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines – was very rewarding,” Caldwell said.

But just like her fellow medical crewmembers, Caldwell recalls one particular patient who made an impact on her personally, as well as her career as an AET.

After surviving the blasts from seven or eight separate improvised explosive devices and suffering from a traumatic brain injury, this service member was insistent on getting his boots on the ground, back into the fight with his unit.

“His spirits, of wanting to get patched up and get back out there,” were just remarkable, Caldwell remembered.

“He was young,” she said. “It kind of hurt a little bit to see that he was so young. But his spirits were just so high, and it makes you love doing this even more.”

Seeing things like that aren’t easy, nor are they expected to be, but “it’s something you just accept as part of your job,” said the senior airman.

Every mission a memory for senior NCO

There have been so many, Senior Master Sgt. Tony Staut, 332nd EAEF superintendant and aeromedical evacuation technician, said of the impactful missions he’s seen throughout his 17-year career. “Every mission you fly triggers some kind of a memory or becomes a memory of one patient or another.”

For Staut, deployed from the 36th AES at Pope AFB, the greatest memories are with the people he works with and the deployment operations he supports, he said, but “I can remember several patients specifically.”

One patient had a traumatic eye injury. Both eyes were severely injured and the theater hospital at Joint Base Balad determined his eyesight could only be salvaged if the patient was transported to a facility in San Antonio for surgery.

“I wasn’t involved with the flight, but it’s a testament to what can happen in this career field and the people I get to work with,” said Staut. They flew that patient with a double set of aeromedical evacuation technicians and aircrew members - pilots and loadmasters - on a C-17 Globemaster III non-stop from Balad to San Antonio.

A mere 20 hours from injury in Iraq, the patient was in surgery.

“That patient, that Marine, will be able to look upon his children for the rest of his life because of the capability we have here,” Staut said.

Another patient, one Staut remembers distinctly, had injuries so severe he wasn’t expected to survive.

“Our goal was to get him back to his family so that they could spend some last moments with their Soldier,” recalled Staut. “That, to me, was an honor – to give the family that gift was something that was special to me and always remains.

“We spare no expense to make that kind of thing happen because that’s what we’re here for. It’s a unique job … and it’s an honor to do it every day,” he said.