Certificate

Day 4 of CLS Training. We started of first thing this morning by going over our "mission" for our practical exercise, gearing up, and heading out to the training lane. The mission was pretty cool, we were sent to find a mock helicoptor crash, which is a possible real-life mission. The chopper was an old, stripped down Huey and to add to the realism the instructors had popped some smoke grenades. I drew the short straw and was put on the Security team while the others in the squad provided medical care to the casualties from the down chopper. The entire time the instructors were popping more and more smoke, as well as launching mortar simulators. The simulators are cool as they provide a good size bang much like an actual mortar round impacting. Another cool thing was the make-up effects for the injuries. They were quite realistic! Seeing as the instructor was not part of our squad and launching simulated fire at us I still think she should have been classified as "hostile" and we should have been allowed to take her out. Oh well, technicalities.

My squad did well, we never dropped a single casualty off a litter, we moved quick for first timers (from what the instructors told us), and we got done before the other squad. We had good teamwork as once someone was done with a task they immediately sought out others who needed help. Other than some issues with buckles that were a bit crunched and cumbersome we really didn't have any hang-ups. Most importantly though is that everyone had fun while learning.

After our practical exercise we regrouped back at the classroom and recieved our certificates making us official Combat Life Savers. By far the last four days was the funnest, most educational, and most realistic training we've had since arriving at Ft. Bliss. All our instructors were knowledgable, approachable, and willing to share their experiences as either EMT's, Combat Medics with previous tours in Iraq/Afghanistan, or a combination of them. I simply cannot say enough good things about them.

I wasn't able to shoot any video/stills of our training today but one of our Staff Sergeants was. With luck I should be able to have some posted by the end of the weekend.

Until then, everyone be safe!

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