The Chief of Staff of the Air Force signed a special order On Jan. 28, 1965 to recognize officers in 17 different medical specializations as the Biomedical Science Corps.

Team Moody’s BSC  is celebrating their strength through diversity for the 53rd year, during BSC appreciation week, here, Jan. 22-26.

“The celebration brings us together,” said Col. Jay Vietas, 23d Medical Group commander. “It’s an opportunity for us to reflect on the way we contribute, as a core, to the Air Force mission as a whole. We are able to just step back and collaborate as a diverse group to celebrate those achievements that essentially propelled not only the 23d Medical Group, but the 23d Wing to be successful and honestly our Air Force to be successful as well.”

The BSC, the most diverse corps in the Air Force Medical Services, is comprised of specialized careers like physical therapists, aerospace physiologists, optometrists and entomologists dedicated to providing specialized trusted medical care to Airmen and their families.

“We’re intertwined throughout the AFMS and the Air Force,” Maj.  Jordan Richardson, 38th RQS Director of medical operations. “BSC is a great and unique community to be a part of. It’s a hodgepodge of everything that’s left of the medical world, but together, we make a huge contribution. We’re not the same, but we all contribute to the same mission.”

Although the BSC may be comprised of the many smaller career fields within the AFMS, the BSC makes up approximately 33 percent of Team Moody’s medical officers.

“The BSC officers and enlisted are the mortar of the wall,” Capt. Brock McNabb, 38th Rescue Squadron preservation of force and family element chief. “We’re what holds the bricks together because there wouldn’t be any mission in the Air Force without the Biomedical Science Corp.

“It just can’t happen. Think of every different test you have to do before deploying or just to do your job, you’re going to be touching BSC in some way. That’s what makes us unique.”

There are many nurses across the Air Force, but audiologists, psychologists or bioenvironmental engineers are much more uncommon. Members often visit these BSC officers before deploying to undergo an array of exams from dental to mental health.

“We are integral to supporting deployments,” said Vietas. “We’re making sure they can fly, are cleared for the physical location they’re going to, fixing their muscular-skeletal issues, or addressing a mental health issue that may have occurred, to enable them to get out there and into the fight.”

With people often regarded as the military’s greatest asset, these services pay huge dividends when it comes to ensuring seasoned leaders are maintained.

“We invest a lot of time and money into the human weapon system and it’s very different than a piece of steel,” said Richardson. “If a plane starts to break, you replace that part. Well, we’re not at a place to where we can replace human parts yet, so we lose the asset as a whole and all the experience that goes with it.”