Moroccan medical personnel and their U.S. counterparts from the Utah Air National Guard's 151st Expeditionary Medical Group began the medical portion of humanitarian civil assistance missions of Exercise African Lion 2010 in the southern Moroccan town of Manizla, May 18, 2010.

Men, women and children of the village in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains waited in the courtyard of the Mohamed El-Alem School for their turn to be examined and treated by Moroccan and U.S. medical personnel who had set up temporary medical clinics in the surrounding school rooms.

Air Force Colonel Paul Byrd of American Fork, Utah, commander of the 151st EMG, said approximately 1,500 patients were seen by doctors and dentists on the first day of the joint Moroccan-U.S. operation in which medical professionals from both countries shared workspace, tools, and knowledge to help the local residents.

In addition to Manizla, Moroccan and U.S. medical professionals are scheduled to visit four more towns in the Taroudant region during African Lion 2010, all chosen by the Moroccan government.

When choosing towns for medical humanitarian civil assistance activities, the Moroccan government takes a number of things into consideration, said Byrd.

"The towns are chosen by the Moroccan Ministry of Health," he said. "They identify where the critical needs are, based on certain incident rates of different diseases and so forth, as well as how much medical care has been able to be provided in that area."

The Moroccan and U.S. healthcare team provides medical treatment to as many people as possible in one day. At Manizla, townspeople stood in line for hours outside the school's gates to be seen by doctors specializing in everything from general health to pediatrics to obstetrics/gynecology to ophthalmology.

"The people are glad you have come," said Aloukas Khalid, a resident of the Manizla area who had come with his cousin.

Though the primary reason for the event, healthcare was not the only service provided by the medical personnel. Many doctors and nurses, when not busy helping patients, took it upon themselves to talk to and even entertain the people waiting to be seen. Lieutenant Colonel Ron Ulberg, a nurse with the 151st EMG, wandered around the schoolyard putting temporary cartoon tattoos on the hands of waiting children and handing out stuffed animals and candy.

"I hope our being here gives them (the local Moroccans) the opportunity to see Americans at work," said Ulberg, who has been to Morocco four times, three of which were as a member of the Humanitarian Civil Assistance medical team during previous African Lion exercises. "It seems like the foreign concept of America isn't always what we think it is, so this gives Moroccans the chance to see that we're really all alike."

Ulberg, a critical care nurse by trade, was assigned to work in pediatrics for this year's medical HCA.

"I have 15 grandkids, so maybe that qualifies me for the job," he said, smiling.

Every Manizla resident who left the schoolyard better than they arrived provided a boost to the doctors, nurses and other medical personnel of the joint Moroccan-U.S. medical team, giving them a surge of energy that will help them in the remaining days. Although they would like to help everyone in the regions they will visit during African Lion 2010, the goal of the Airmen of the 151st EMG is to help as many as they possibly can during their short stay in Morocco.

"We're anxious to capitalize on the opportunity to provide as much assistance as we can," said Byrd.

Exercise AFRICAN LION is a U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)-sponsored exercise that includes various types of military training including command post, live-fire training, peacekeeping operations, disaster response training, intelligence capacity building seminar, aerial refueling / low level flight training as well as a medical, dental, and veterinarian assistance projects and exercise related construction that runs concurrent with the training.

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