Contact: 1LT Penelope Carroll, ANG 127 WG/PA
Penelope.carroll@miself.ang.af.mil

News Release
127th Wing
Selfridge ANG Base, MI 48045
586-307-5576
News Release 0806
June 9, 2008

SELFRIDGE AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, MICH. - Almost 25 Airmen from the Michigan Air National Guard left Sunday June 8th to provide support and medical services to Latvia, as part of the State Partnership Program of the National Guard.

The medical services team made up of Airmen from the 110th Fighter Wing in Battle Creek, the 127th Medical Group at Selfridge ANG Base, and the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center, will be deployed for two weeks. While deployed, the Michigan Guardsmen will work side-by-side with their Latvian counterparts to provide medical health care screenings, dental fluoride treatments, and optical services to include the dispensing of glasses. The Airmen will be assisting the Latvians in bringing aid to rural areas of their country not easily accessed by local health care workers.

Major General Thomas G. Cutler, the Adjutant General of Michigan, is also traveling with the medical contingent. "Michigan Guardsmen are trained to provide quality health care and much needed services to the people of our Partner State. It's a great thing for our Airmen to have this international connection with the Latvians while extending a hand of support."

State Partnerships are created through discussions among countries, ministers of defense, the U.S. ambassador, regional combatant commanders, adjutants general, governors and the chief of the National Guard Bureau, which administers the SPP. The SPP started in the Baltic region of Europe in 1993 after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, focused on matching U.S. states with former Soviet satellite nations. The SPP later expanded to South and Central America. Central Asia, the Middle East, the Pacific and Africa came next. No SPP relationship has ended and none has failed since the program's inception 15 years ago.

Last summer, twenty-two soldiers from the Michigan Army National Guard deployed to Latvia to participate in Operation Summer Shield, a training exercise which prepared the Latvian Land Forces prior to their deployment to Iraq.