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Medical officers to support 'Arctic' mission

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Jason Schaap
  • 931st Air Refueling Group Public Affairs
MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, Kan. --  Military life is about to get cold for two 931st Air Refueling Group Reservists. Alaska cold.

Lt. Col. Cheryl Hooper and Lt. Col. (Dr.) James Clark are scheduled to join Operation Arctic Care, a humanitarian aid mission in the remote regions of Alaska, in early March.

Colonel Clark is a dentist assigned to the 931st Aerospace Medicine Flight. Colonel Hooper is the flight's commander. Both officers volunteered for the two-week mission.

"I'm curious to see what it's like at the extremes of the world," Colonel Clark said. He likes helping people who live in austere conditions that have been known to reduce dental offices to a lawn chair and a flash light.

Operation Arctic Care is an annual training event that rotates to different areas of rural Alaska each year. Colonel Hooper said the upcoming mission will be based out of Bethel, a city 340 miles west of Anchorage that is only accessible by air and river.

The average temperature for the region in March is below 20 degrees.

"Cold," Colonel Hooper said, simply, her eyebrows raised, about what mission organizers told her to expect in Alaska.

Snow buries the area much of the year. Military helicopters will transport Arctic Care team members from Bethel to help native Alaskans in remote villages.

"It will be primitive conditions," Colonel Clark said. He first experienced such conditions in 2005 during a tour in Iraq, where Defense Department dentists often treat Iraqi civilians.

Last year, Colonel Clark volunteered with other 931st Airmen to support a humanitarian mission in rural Guatemala. So many people sought dental care there, his hands would be completely swollen by the end of most days, he said.

Like Colonel Clark, who has his own dental practice in Ada, Okla., Colonel Hooper is a traditional Reservist with a full-time civilian job. She's a nurse practitioner for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which means she's completed advanced training in nursing valuable to the Alaska mission.

About 120 medical providers and other personnel from the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps are scheduled to support Operation Arctic Care 2009. The annual Innovative Readiness Training deployment offers joint service experience to active and Reserve components.