Military medical teams from across the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus framework gathered in Banten Province, Indonesia, for Exercise Trident Resolve, a drill simulating an earthquake, volcanic eruption and tsunami striking at once, Mirage News reported.
The exercise, co-chaired by Indonesia and the United States through the Experts’ Working Group on military medicine, challenged personnel with complex humanitarian assistance and disaster relief scenarios across the province.
Scenarios included chemical contamination, damaged healthcare facilities and compromised water supplies, all requiring coordination of medical care across multiple locations with degraded infrastructure and limited resources. Operating offshore, Indonesia’s hospital ship KRI Dr Soeharso and Singapore’s RSS Endeavour contributed additional surgical and triage capacity.
Major General E. Darrin Cox, the United States co-chair of the Experts’ Working Group on military medicine, said the exercise reinforced the close relationship between medical support, communications and broader humanitarian assistance efforts. “Disaster relief, medical care and secure communications are not separate missions. They are a single, unified lifeline to response and recovery,” Cox said.
Australian Army medic Corporal Laura Devine, of 3 Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron, said the exercise highlighted the challenges and value of multinational medical integration. “The language barrier was a major factor. Everyone speaks at least some degree of English, but there were a lot of hand gestures for those who were not as comfortable,” Devine said.
In a tsunami response drill, teams retrieved simulated casualties from the shoreline, managed hypothermia, fractures and other injuries, then moved patients by ambulance to a multinational Role 2 military hospital for continued care.
Devine said she ended up in an ambulance with Japanese personnel and worked closely with a Singaporean doctor, as well as Americans, Koreans and Bruneians, seeing how their medical teams operate. “We were working with the equipment that was available on the ground, so it was a matter of coming together and using our collective brains to work with what we had,” she said.
Beyond stabilizing casualties, participants considered disease prevention, forensic support, community recovery and the restoration of critical infrastructure. “Our job doesn’t just end with putting a Band-Aid on. It can continue into weeks and months afterwards, helping communities recover through physical health, mental health and living conditions,” Devine said.
The exercise created opportunities for military medical personnel across the ADMM-Plus framework to share expertise and strengthen interoperability.
What is Exercise Trident Resolve? It is a multinational military medicine exercise co-chaired by Indonesia and the United States under the Experts’ Working Group on military medicine. The drill simulated a major natural disaster in Banten Province, including an earthquake, volcanic eruption and tsunami.
Which countries took part? Military medical personnel from across the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus framework joined the exercise, with named participants including teams from Indonesia, the United States, Australia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Brunei.
What role did the hospital ships play? Indonesia’s KRI Dr Soeharso and Singapore’s RSS Endeavour operated offshore, providing additional surgical and triage capability while shore teams worked with damaged infrastructure and limited resources.
Keep reading