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2 • April 27, 2025 • www. mcrecord. com • Morrison County Record • The Ripley Reporter
National Guard hosts joint military medical summit
BY STAFF SGT. MAHSIMA ALKAMOONEH MINNESOTA NATIONAL GUARD
BY STAFF SGT. JORDEN NEWBANKS CAMP RIPLEY TRAINING CENTER
Nearly 100 Minnesota National Guard medical professionals recently gathered at the 133rd Airlift Wing, Saint Paul, Minn., for the 2025 Joint Military Medical Summit, Feb. 15-16, 2025.
“ The main objective of the JMMS is to strengthen relationships, enhance medical readiness and support the evolving missions of military medical operations,” said Army Lt. Col. Jolene Carlson, deputy commander of administration for the Minnesota Medical Detachment.
The biennial event provides a platform for Army and Air National Guard medical personnel to collaborate, share best practices and enhance readiness for future missions. Leaders also hope to expand joint medical training opportunities to strengthen partnerships between the components further.
“ Another big part of this is to mingle and share ideas and experiences,” said the Minnesota National Guard’ s State Air Surgeon, Col. David Nelson.“ We have a lot of potential here to conduct real-world training if we mix Army and Air.”
This year’ s summit marked a milestone as the first time the Air National Guard hosted and the first time Croatia, one of the Minnesota National Guard’ s state partners, took part.
The two-day event featured presentations from subject matter experts on critical military medicine topics such as bioweapons, mental health and responding to unexpected situations. The JMMS enhanced technical proficiency and fostered collaboration between Army and Air medical professionals.
“ It’ s about developing better standards of care and working together to provide better treatment to our
Another year has passed, and like many others, Soldiers in the Minnesota National Guard are creating goals and New Year’ s resolutions for 2025. The Holistic Health and Fitness, or H2F, program provided some advice on how to keep up with those New Year’ s resolutions so that Soldiers can achieve their goals and improve their overall health through one of their monthly Microsoft Teams Live events.
“ It’ s important to be honest with yourself when creating goals,” said Army Chaplain Michael Rivera.“ Creating changes may lead you to new paths, deeper connections, and transformative experiences. As Maya Angelou beautifully stated, nothing will work unless you do. The quote reminds us that while chance may offer us opportunities, our effort and willingness to engage, learn, adapt, and persist ultimately lead to meaningful change.”
Rivera said that creating specific, measurable, attainable, revisable, and timely goals is important and valuable in ensuring that change is achievable and that New Year’ s resolutions don’ t fizzle out. These goals are also known as SMART Goals, and one of the first steps to reaching them is to reword them to be more positive while also including the five domains of holistic health: physical, mental, nutrition, sleep, and spiritual.
“ When we’ re only giving things up, it can make it feel like an exercise in deprivation and punishment, and instead, we should set our goals as something that we’ re adding in,” said Amber Boyens, an H2F dietitian.“ For example, in nutrition, we eventually run out of room for the negative language. Overall, we will have a more positive, encouraging, enjoyable experience as we set these goals if we shift away from them being small punishments.”
Brandon Saude, an H2F consultant, said that
Soldiers and Airmen,” said Sgt. 1st Class Shane Kaplan, a treatment platoon sergeant assigned to Charlie Company, 134th Brigade Support Battalion.“ Units should prioritize this [ conference ]. If they have any medical assets in their formations, get them here to see what it’ s about from the lowest level to the highest level.”
As military medicine continues to evolve, events like the JMMS ensure that Minnesota National Guard medical personnel stay ahead of new training and innovation. The knowledge gained will be returned to units across the state, strengthening the Guard’ s ability to respond to state and federal missions.
“ Thank you all for the work that you do to take care of our Airmen and our Soldiers,” said the Minnesota National Guard’ s State Army Surgeon Col. Conrad Ross.“ It’ s critically important. Without you, without your participation here, we would not be successful.”
New Year, New You, and A Holistic Approach to SMART Goals
SMART goals can start small but should create a clear path to a desired outcome. A Soldier can go through the process of creating specific behavior-oriented outcomes which include the five domains of holistic health. This process can assist with any New Year’ s resolution.
“ The letter‘ R’ in SMART stands for revisable. Revisable goals allow you to adjust them along the way. Before we get into it, just think for a minute how many times have you set a goal for yourself and the main reason why you stopped pursuing that goal,” said Saude.
During the event, Rivera shared the word of the day,‘ change’ with participants, to help summarize the support of a SMART goal and holistic health. By accepting change in a positive way and applying holistic health within a SMART goal, Soldiers can achieve their New Year’ s resolutions and any other goals they have.
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