LA CALERA, Nicaragua - South Dakota Soldiers conducted a medical evacuation exercise on April 4 in La Calera during the humanitarian assistance exercise known as New Horizons-Nicaragua 2007.
The $7.25 million U.S.-Nicaraguan joint exercise is supported by the U.S. Air Force's 820th Expeditionary Red Horse Squadron and the South Dakota Army National Guard. The exercise will provide a new school and a medical clinic with free health and veterinary care to the local populace.
These humanitarian assistance exercises provide much needed services and infrastructure to Nicaragua, while providing critical training for deployed U.S. military forces. These exercises generally take place in rural areas.
New Horizons' projects in the Central American countries of Nicaragua and Honduras typically involve the construction of schools, clinics and water wells.
Supporting the exercise since January, about 300 South Dakota Army National Guardsmen have participated from units of the 153rd Engineer Battalion, headquartered in Huron, and Company C, 1st Battalion, 189th Aviation, an air-ambulance unit based in Rapid City.
The air-ambulance unit provided general aviation and casualty evacuation in support of the exercise and the engineer unit constructed a two-room school near the village of Caliguate.
Both South Dakota units were able to team-up to conduct the evacuation exercise to improve on life-saving response skills and medical evacuation drills using trained combat life-savers and the Black Hawk aircraft.
The units will be completing the Nicaragua exercise in May with a follow-on engineering mission in Honduras that will last through mid-July.