NIS, Serbia -- Members of the U.S. Air Force arrived in Nis, Serbia, Aug. 25 to set up for a 15-nation military medical training exercise in Central and Eastern Europe - MEDCEUR 2009. Additional forces will continue arriving through Sept. 2 when the exercise officially begins.

More than 600 people will flood the city of Nis to participate in the Sept. 2 - 13 exercise focused on providing joint medical training and assisting host nation civilian and military services; international, private and volunteer organizations; and other participating nations in enhancing disaster response actions. 

Extensive preparation for the medical exercise began nearly one year ago and continued through four formal meetings with Serbian Armed Forces and participating nations that are members of Partnership for Peace, a program that allows non-NATO countries to form relationships with NATO. 

"Prior to the exercise actually starting, our team has been down here four times... for planning conferences," said Capt. Mike Rellick, 435th Expeditionary Air Base Squadron commander for MEDCEUR 2009. "We came down and surveyed the airfield, did an airfield suitability assessment basically finding out what buildings can be used and we did a test of the runway, taxi ways and parking ramps to determine what type of aircraft can land, taxi and park."

The first boots on the ground were the 435th Contingency Response Group and 1st Combat Communications Squadron from Ramstein Air Base, Germany. The two units led the way for the first participants, establishing a booming, operational air base from bare fields.

"Our team consists of approximately 35 personnel - a mixture of combat comm and the CRG," Captain Rellick said. Tent city "was erected in a matter of a day and half. It's fully operational. We have showers, air conditioning and communications are completely set up."

Sleeping and morale tents were erected as participants trickled into the base. Behind the scenes were Airmen and their Serbian counterparts providing the muscle for assembling necessities for participants to get settled before the exercise kicks off.

"For my job, I'll come out and inspect the site to see where the best place would be to lay down the tent area, and also find a sight to lay down the generators and see where the air conditioners are going to be between all the tents," said Staff Sgt. Justin Gebhardt, Contingency Response Team leader in training and ramp coordinator. We "figure out the power grid - how I'm going to run the cables through the camp."

Once the exercise is up and running, the CRG will act as the liaison between the host nation and the multi-national exercise participants to ensure any additional requirements are taken care of, such as issues with billeting, facilities, meals or water supply.

"Our relationship with our Serbian counterparts has actually been quite impressive so far. They've pretty much welcomed us into they're country with open arms and provided us with almost every aspect of support we can imagine," Captain Rellick said. "We get to see how they do operations and they're learning a lot from us... I'm sure throughout the next two weeks we'll continue to share experiences of how we deploy and operate in an expeditionary environment."

"Honestly, the U.S. and Serbia haven't had a lot of opportunities to work together, so this is certainly a major opportunity. They are very disciplined in their planning approach and this is a major opportunity for them hosting this exercise to showcase their capabilities," added Col. Tim Brown, 435th Expeditionary Contingency Response Group commander and co-director and overall U.S. commander for MEDCEUR 2009.

Besides the host nation and U.S. forces, other countries participating in the exercise include Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Croatia, Germany, Georgia, Herzegovina, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Norway and Poland.

"One of the participating countries, Montenegro, will be hosting the 2010 MEDCEUR," said Colonel Brown. "They were invited to participate and observe so they can gather some lessons learned - since this is Serbia's first attempt as well. That way the lessons learned from this year's MEDCEUR can go into MEDCEUR 2010."

We always take the opportunity to try to learn from others as well. We teach others and we learn from others and that's really what MEDCEUR 2009 is all about," he said.