Blog Posts tagged with "Project HOPE"

Although the news tends to cover the myriad of crises that EUCOM is involved with, it often overlooks the vitally important and enduring missions that truly underpin the long-term success of EUCOM. Let me offer you an example. Part of EUCOM ‘s mission is to conduct work with our international military counterparts in order to build their military capacity. Sometimes we do this alone – military to military – and other times we find opportunities to work with other partners in the public or private sector.

A case in point: In early March, we teamed up with Project Hope, a non-profit medical service organization, to work with us and our Baltic allies in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia on some of the most relevant, important issues facing all of our forces: wounded warrior care, veteran care, traumatic brain injury (TBI) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are committed ISAF partners conducting combat operations in Afghanistan. These countries each rank in the top half of total ISAF troop contributions, as well as per capita fatalities. Lithuania leads a Provincial Reconstruction Tam (PRT) in Chaghcharan; Latvia has contributed soldiers to PRT and Operational Mentor and Liaison Team (OMLT) missions for the last 4 years in Afghanistan; and Estonia is operating alongside coalition forces without caveats in some of the most dangerous areas of Afghanistan.

Like most countries involved with the ISAF mission, the Baltic nations have experienced a relatively high amount of casualties, IED related injuries and PTSD. Like all contributors, they are confronting the challenges of caring for severely wounded, ill, and injured military personnel and their families post deployment.

EUCOM’s Military to Military Contact Program, one of EUCOM’s oldest and most effective security cooperation programs, began working with the Offices of Defense Cooperation in our Baltic embassies to plan an event with our allies which facilitates information sharing for pre- and post-deployment medical care, including the identification and treatment of TBI and building a Warrior Care plan.

The Project Hope mission includes educating health professionals, community health workers, and strengthening health facilities all over the world. For this event, Project Hope provided nationally renowned specialists in neurosurgery and psychiatry to team up with a director from the Department of Defense Wounded Warrior Program, a senior DOD policy analyst and U.S. Air Force Europe’s 3rd Air Chief of International Health. With the help of our ODCs, this team of experts traveled to Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia where they worked alongside members of the Ministries of Defense and Health, along with civilian medical, hospital and university personnel.

What a success! This mission proved an important first step in a continued partnership of exchanges and collaboration on these crucial issues for soldiers and veterans who have served their nation and NATO proudly.

We are learning more and more how TBI can lead to problems with PTSD, depression, drugs and alcohol, and seeing more clearly the tangible effects of the bloodless trauma from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We all grapple with these tough problems. Learning from each other – across nations and public/private sectors – and sharing lessons learned and best practices is the truest form of international and public-private cooperation. This collaboration with Project Hope and the Department of Defense in the Baltics embodied that spirit perfectly.

Adm. James Stavridis
Commander, U.S. European Command and
Supreme Allied Commander, Europe

More blogs on the Project Hope/Wounded Warrior Care visit are available here: Exploring Wounded Warrior issues in partner nations

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