Burundi, Dec 27, 2010 — Four service members assigned to Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa and Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, recently returned from Burundi where they participated as Tactical Combat Casualty Care course instructors for Burundian National Defense Force combat medics as part of a U.S. State Department-sponsored program.

The BNDF is preparing for an upcoming peacekeeping mission where the lifesaving techniques of the course may become invaluable.

“We are preparing (the BNDF) combat medics to advance their skills to treat casualties in the field,” said U.S. Air Force Captain Sylvia Kim, CJTF-HOA joint medical planner. “The skills we are delivering from this course are essential knowledge we want to arm them with.”

The course is part of a U.S. Department of State initiative to provide African armies an opportunity to partner with American defense forces to develop their peacekeeping skills for operations throughout Africa, according to James Cobb, the U.S. State Department program country manager in Burundi.

“(The program) helps both Americans and Africans,” Cobb said. “It gives us an opportunity to partner together and part of our exchange is we provide them with a baseline of doctrine and information that is NATO-standard and can be applied to all peace support operations on the continent. We serve as a tool to help them train their staff and soldiers to prepare them to deploy to their mission.”