Combat Life Saver

As I mentioned earlier, last week I spent four days training to be a Combat Life Saver.  A friend shared some photos from our last day there where we applied all of the skills and training.

We ran across fields, we were laying in the grass, running a few feet, laying in the grass, running, laying, running, laying... you get the picture and you'll see the field we ran/lay across in some of the photos.  (That body armor, or battle rattle as I like to call it, weighs close to 50 pounds.)  So if you see me or anybody else looking tired or mouth-open breathing you know why. 

I'm providing security while the guy playing CLS provides life-saving turniquets.

This is the Care Under Fire portion.  We provide security and put on turniquets.  That's the only thing we do, then we get the patient and us back to a safe/secure area.

Don't worry, those are fake wounds and fake blood.

The good Captain here is putting his knee almost in this guy's groin in order to stop blood flow to the leg while he applies a tourniquet.

We practiced putting pressure on the veins on each other and believe me, it's quite painful when done right. 
But hey, what's a little pain compared to stopping from bleeding to death in 2-4 minutes.  Nothing.

There is a real guy underneath that fake mask w/the wounds.  He's unconscious and they're trying to move him to the safe/secure area.  It's incredibly hard since he and his gear probably weighs something like 225 pounds.

Providing full medical CLS treatment in the secure area.

We have moved the patients to the medivac point and are waiting for our medivac folks arrive/the exercise to end. 

Waiting for medivac.  (See the field behind us, that is what we ran across.)

MRAP Training

Few things are cooler than driving a big, huge, heavy Army vehicle.  I'm not talking about a HMMWV, I'm talking about a 50,000 pound, 5.5 miles per gallon guzzling, drive through 3 feet of water, and survive an IED blast up-armored vehicle.

It's called a MRAP, which stands for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle.  That is what I drove today.

We had to wear our helmets, body armor, gloves and eye protection during the training.  Three students sat in the back and an instructor sat shotgun while a student drove.  It wasn't bad riding in the back, but I'm short and don't require much leg room compared to some guys who are 6 feet tall and all legs.  They probably didn't enjoy it too much & if somebody was sitting across from them they would have knocked knees and enjoyed it even less.

The doors and ramp in the back are set up with an air-assist system because they are so heavy once the armor is put on.

 The MRAP sits incredibly high off the ground compared to my car, that was the first thing I noticed when I climbed into the cab.  It has a 4-point harness, and the teachers told us it drives something like a semi-tractor trailer.

The training was good, I enjoyed it and wished I could have driven around for a few more miles because it was pretty darn neat and I'll probably never get the chance again.

Army Combat Skills Training

Right now I'm at Army Combat Skills Training at Ft. Dix, New Jersey and it's been challenging in many different ways. 
1-We've had a lot of down time, so I've been bored at times and done a good bit of reading and working on my hand-quilting project.  I'm also trying to take a military education test later this week since I've had so much time to study for it. 

We were issued a lot of Army uniforms and gear for this training.  That is why I'm wearing the Army's ACU pattern above.  This photo was taken during my CLS training.  The yellow tip on my M4 rifle basically means that I don't have live rounds in the weapon.

2-Combat LifeSaver Class was tough.  It was a four day class and we had to bring/wear all our Battle-Rattle (helmet, body armor, knee & elbow pads, gloves and eye protection) and both weapons (M4 & M9) for all days of the class.  We saw lots of terrible photos of real wounds and learned about basic, basic field medical care.  I took this exact class several years ago at my Camp Shelby, Mississippi CST course but it was a great refresher course and I learned new things.  We covered applying a tourniquet, pressure points, needle-chest-decompression (if a lung collapses, how to remove the pressure that builds up around that lung), pressure bandages, occlusive bandages (wounds to the chest area), how to move patients, call in medical help and much more. 
The final day we did several exercises where we wore all our gear and had to run across a field to save some troops, then take them to wherever we were meeting the medivac folks.  We were exhausted from wearing all the gear and carting around other folks who were also wearing all their gear.  That stuff weighs around 40-50 or so pounds!
3-There is no privacy.  I live in a room with 6 other women (Lts and Capts), which is better than the 36 other women I lived with during my prior CST experience.  But still it's a challenge. 
The barracks have over 300 people in them and I have yet to take a hot shower.  They're mostly lukewarm to cold and sometimes the cold comes out of nowhere and it's like ice water.  Now that'll make you jump no matter how exhausted you are.
4-The classes can start as early as 7:30, which means we meet or check out our weapons around 6:30 a.m.  We can have lessons/meetings until late in the evening too.  They're 7 days a week but we are guaranteed to have Sunday morning off until 9 a.m.; so I'm grateful for that reprieve.