JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. -- Being a Citizen Airman, a term used to describe a servicemember of the Air Force Reserve, comes with the responsibility of carrying one’s self to a higher standard; a standard that is recognized worldwide by the uniform they wear and the title they carry.
For some Airmen, the significance of that duty reaches a global level even outside the uniform.
For Lt. Col. Michael Ayres, the 459th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron commander, that responsibility became even more impactful recently.
Earlier this year, Ayres travelled to Ethiopia for his civilian job with the Strategic National Stockpile, a division of the Center of Disease Control and Prevention that focuses on providing emergency medical countermeasures worldwide.
While still maintaining his duties as commander of the 459th AES, Ayres deployed to Addis Abada, the capitol of Ethiopia, in February to help host a workshop to teach local nationals medical countermeasures for supply chain operations.
“The program was implemented to teach the Ethiopian Public Health Institute the basics for structuring developmental action plans in the case of a disease outbreak,” said Ayres. “The idea was to give them the tools to create their own supply chain plan for emergencies so that they could respond appropriately in a crisis.”
The program is based off of the Global Health Security Agenda’s 11 Action Packages, a CDC crisis readiness plan, which aims to create a national framework for developing countries to send and receive medical responses among international partners during public health emergencies.
The GHSA’s primary focus is to strengthen a nation’s capacity to respond to an infectious outbreak by having the appropriate countermeasures put in place. The organization accomplishes this by training foreign nationals on how to respond to such an event, a task that Ayres eagerly volunteered for.
As the commander of an aeromedical evacuation squadron who frequently performs transports from foreign soils, Ayres understands the importance of having an action plan in place.
“It’s always interesting working with foreign nationals in their country because of the vast differences of each, and the work we are doing there will potentially help them save lives in the future,” said Ayres. “I have no doubt that my military deployments have prepared me for these situations.”
With nearly 40 years of overall military experience, 33 of them as an Air Force Reservist, Ayres has deployed multiple times to various locations throughout his career.
He joined the Air Force Reserve in January of 1983 and took over his latest position as commander of the 459th AES in February 2014.
Ayres attributes his leadership and coordination skills that he used to train the Ethiopians to his current role as commander and experience being a Citizen Airman.
“The Air Force can train you on anything, and you can relate to the real world; you take what you know how to do and use it to accomplish what you need to get done,” he said.
Since returning from Ethiopia, Ayres has travelled to Uganda to perform another workshop and plans to visit several more developing countries in the next few years.