Combat Lifesavers

Despite our grumblings, first team was split apart and sent to the four corners of the earth for the next week of training.

LT ended up in Arlington, Virginia for a week-long Provincial Reconstruction Team course. He basically learned a lot about the mindset of our civilian counterparts along with a better understanding how we can coordinate on projects in Afghanistan. They were a few Marines from our Civil Affairs unit, some Army guys, and then civilians who were soon to be deployed. Word on the street was the soldiers did not get along with anyone--apparently they were a little too Army Strong. LT returned with the look of a man who now has nightmares about PowerPoint briefs.

Creole and Dominicano went to the rifle and pistol range. This is an annual training requirement: classes on aiming and breathing, practicing the firing positions (with such exciting names as "the low kneeling" and "the sitting"), and finally qualifying on paper targets from distances up to 500 meters. It's mostly considered a joke by the Marines but can degenerate into pure hell if the weather takes a turn for the worst. It rained a bit for our guys, but it was nothing compared to my time spent on the windy, snow-covered fields of Quantico. Once again I found myself as the old man, starting off a story with "You guys have it easy. I remember . . ."

Drama was supposed to go to the range as well, but he managed to find a way to screw that up. During the classroom instruction portion he "had" to miss some of the mandatory classes to take care of his bed bug problem mentioned in an earlier post. After talking to the range coach at my behest, Drama said it was fine and he would be able to continue on the range. Two days later he nervously explained that somehow he had misunderstood and could not participate after all. And so he lived up to his namesake yet again.

Mumbles and I were planning to drive to 29 Palms for several days to attend a counterinsurgency course but that was put on hold so we could instead take a combat medic course known as Combat Lifesavers. I had been CLS qualified (meaning I finished the course conscious and with a strong pulse) immediately prior to my last deployment but was pretty skeptical of its value. A bad instructor made the entire curriculum worthless. If this was to be our fate, however, I would make the best of it.

The course got off to a bad start. The instructor, a young Filipino Navy medic from the Regimental Aid Station, showed up twenty minutes late out of breath. Mumbles and I were sitting with a few other Marines from our detachment arguing about whether Sylvester Stallone's tattoos were real or airbrushed for his new movie "The Expendables". Obviously we were upset at having to cut short this valuable discussion.

We launched right into the classes (after troubleshooting the obligatory laptop-projector malfunction, of course) and began learning about hemorrhage control. Pressure dressing, tourniquets, hemostatic agents: all the medical knowledge we would ever need flew by in standardized PowerPoint format. This is what the military refers to as an information dump. There was little we were expected to retain; practical application and follow-on testing would cement our new skills.

The same format - class, application, testing - was followed for breathing and chest injuries. At exactly 1030, after less than three hours of class, we were pronounced done for the day. CLS is supposed to be a four day, eight hour course! I'm as lazy as the next guy and really liked the idea of getting off early but the Marine in me (now commanding over 50% of my brain) would not waste this training week. Mumbles and I went for a run, hit the chow hall, studied some Pashto (the language of Southern Afghanistan), and then did some machine gun drills before getting off for the day.

Day two was not much better. Heat injuries, shock casualties, burn casualties, triage, and casualty evacuation came and went in quick succession. Again, done by 1030. Again, Mumbles and I worked on other skills and rehearsed everything from the previous day before heading back to our rooms. The only cool thing was getting to administer IVs to each other; my right arm still shows some bruising from the fumbling handiwork of nervous 19 year-old.

Day three was the last day because we'd gone through the classes so quickly; Mumbles and I tested first and both passed easily. Apparently I had learned something in the last five years (since originally leaving active duty). The course was pretty much a wash, but I had salvaged some sort of value. Mumbles and I were slightly better prepared to deploy as Marines, if not practitioners of civil affairs. And life goes on.