Tag: PLATOON

I nailed the medical lane and it felt great!  A lot of studying and a lot of help.  As I was reading my last post I realized I left out SGT Thomas from Ft. Belvoir.  He has been a great help ever since we began our preliminary training in March.  I owe him a debt of gratitude also.

We lost 4 more of our platoon today in this lane.  When I walked up, one of the guys just held up his hands.  You could see the simulated blood all over his hands – he had forgotten to put on his gloves.  That is the one thing that gives you almost an automatic failure.  Even though all the tasks were done correctly, without gloves you fail each thing.  So we are down to 9.

With today behind us, the only thing left is the ruck march tomorrow.  We will leave at 6 am.  We have been told the course is 6 miles up a hill, and 6 miles back down.  Doesn’t sound like fun, but I’ll get it done!

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Today was the NBC lane. We had 5 of our people in our platoon get eliminated today. It is hard to see the people you have been training with get whittled down little by little. I got dinged on a couple of items, and was able to appeal them and get some of them changed which was good.

Tomorrow is the hardest lane, and the one I need to hit the hardest tonight. It is our medical lane. I have a small cushion of tasks that I can miss and still have a “go”, so it is a little comforting knowing that. I still need to get the other things right. If that is a go, then I will be able to help a couple of our guys study for the written re-test, and then we will have the march the next day. The finish line is in view.

I have been cramming and cramming tonight with some of the guys. It is amazing the way people are pulling together to help each other out. Some guys would get bitter and shut off – but most are opening up to help their buddies succeed. For me Corporal Schwab from the Honor Guard (3rd ID Regiment) at Ft. Meyer has been a huge help. If I pass I will owe most of it to him!

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10th day of EFMB. The weather has changed drastically. It had been in the mid to upper 80’s for the last week and a half. Today it didn’t get much past the mid 60’s and it was drizzling much of the day.

Today’s lane was the communications/evacuation lane that had about 10 things being graded. Out of our 17 left in our platoon, all of us passed the lane – although one had to appeal a grade and was successful. Many of the platoon got all tasks correct. A few got dinged on 1 or 2 events, and so they have less margin for error in the next couple of days.

Tomorrow will be our NBC (nuclear, biological, and chemical) lane. It will be a little harder than the lane we had today, but the toughest lane will still be the medical lane on Thursday.

For those Soldiers that have been eliminated, they are having them help out with assisting on the lanes, or other jobs around the barracks.

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I don’t even remember what day it is – does that tell you something? We got in from land navigation at 2 am, and I will be functioning off of 3 hours of sleep today. Fortunately it is one of the lanes I have down pretty good.

Yesterday on land navigation was tough for our platoon. We started out with 30 individuals, after the daytime portion 11 had been eliminated. 3 appealed and were successful and were able to stay in. We started night land navigation with 22. 5 were eliminated. 2 made appeals, and we don’t know how that will go. At this point our platoon has been cut in half to 17.

The points were still tough; the difference was the familiarity with the course at this point. I had gotten done with my daytime points after about an hour. During that time I was walking areas that I wasn’t familiar with to find points and increase my knowledge with the terrain. Even after I found my points I continued walking new areas for another 45 minutes.

At night I had one point I had already had a different night, and the other 2 intermediate points I had found earlier in the day.

In another hour we will take off for our next lane – evac and radio.

One of the platoon members SPC Naboa presenting me with a special gift – denture adhesive. Not sure if that was because I’m a dentist or because of my age. At 35 I am one of the oldest competitors. I am also the only major here. There are a few captains and lieutenants. The only person that outranks me is the test board chairman. That doesn’t really mean anything; I just thought there would be more officers here.

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“Getting smoked” is a term that anyone that has been enlisted in the Army is familiar with. Although it has been quite awhile since I was enlisted, this brought back memories of many times I was “smoked”. Getting smoked is a physical way to help “send a message” and make sure someone remembers the message or instructions given next time.

These were some guys from our platoon. They said it was OK to post this.

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1 down 5 more to go. Sunday morning we took our written test. It was 60 questions and you had to get 45 correct to pass. Overall pass rate was around 75% for all the Soldiers. Our platoon had 22/30 pass. Fortunately they will have a second chance Thursday night to retake the test if they aren’t eliminated prior to that.

Tonight we will have a 2 hour study hall to get ready for our tasks that we will do on Tuesday. We are studying for those tonight, because when we are out at land navigation we will not return until 2-3 am.

Tomorrow we go out and do the day and night land navigation. If you don’t get either one – you are out and done with the competition. Now that I have been out, and more familiar with the course, I am hoping for a much better out come then last time. I also believe that instead of trying to hike through miles of thorns and bushes, I will utilize the roads around the area more to find the points. This will speed up the overall time it takes to find the points, and if I have a problem with any of the points I can use the extra time to go back to the “trail blazing or dead reckoning” method.

There is one interesting thing I learned from CPT Leon the OIC yesterday. The medical command for the northeast that is hosting this event spent $75,000 to do this excellent training. Money well spent!!

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T – 1 day to go. Today we had time to run errands, take care of laundry, and study. In the afternoon they had a “jeopardy-type” competition between us and another platoon to help us review for the test tomorrow. 

Dinner was a BBQ in honor of the first week being done. Choices for dinner were steak or BBQ chicken, and bratwurst, hamburgers, or hot dogs along with all the other fixings. I definitely ate more than I should have.

At night we studied for our test some more with some of the other guys. It will be early to bed tonight – we are the first group up for the test tomorrow. That will be good because it will give us more time afterward to study for the other days.

Chief Flanders with the Officer in Charge of the EFMB competition CPT Leon. Chief Flanders is one of the guys I have been training up with from Ft. Belvoir. He is the warrant officer over medical maintenance.

Study group the night before the test.

Corporal Schwab from the 3rd ID Honor Guard at Ft. Meyers. He’s been a great help getting us ready for the competition.

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I’m feeling a little discouraged right now. We got back from day and night land navigation at 2:30 am, and were pretty beat. Out of the 30 in our platoon, only 8 people got at least 3/4 of their locations in the day, and 12 at night. Although that sounds bad, the other platoons that have gone on other days have gotten even less. I did not get the minimum of 3 locations on either day or night, and unfortunately there is no other practice opportunities left.

The terrain was pretty thick and nasty on the back half. Briars and thick brush everywhere that we had to push through. Came back pretty scratched up, but glad to have had the chance to get out and familiarize myself with the lane.

We have 7 females in our platoon. There are about 15/100 females total competing.

Getting ready to head off on the course.

Action shot of the mess I was walking through

Wasn’t too fun pushing through this. Fortunately no injuries (major)

Can you imagine blazing a trail through this?

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Today was the “tough lane” It was the medical lane that involves about 14 different tasks that involve a lot of acronyms and a lot to remember. Going through it today on the practice run was great, but it definitely let me know that I need to really study that material.

We had to take apart and reassemble an m-16, react to direct fire, apply a tourniquet, 1-man carry an injured individual, triage and treat 3 patients that included doing an IV, fracture, arteriol bleed, shock, airway, tension pneumothorax, chest wound, and other minor injuries. It finished with performing a 2-man carry, and loading a field ambulance. We have a chance to go over things for an hour tonight, and then 2 practice days Friday and Saturday that I will definitely use to go over the material again.

CPT Rose getting ready for the day.

SGT Davis one of our instructors demonstrating how to take apart an m-16

Our platoon waiting for formation.

SPC Thayer (one of our dental assistants from Ft. Drum) demonstrating our new platoon guidon that he created.

Our “lucky” patient that we were able to work on.

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Day two at EFMB. Today our platoon went out on the NBC lane (chemical attack). This lane has about 9 different tasks that you have to go through. This first week is just practice runs of everything we will have to be tested on next week.

Our platoon getting ready to run through the practice lanes.

Our demonstrator in full chemical/biohazard gear.

Loading “wounded” onto a Humvee

Catching a quick nap at lunch.

SGT Thomas covered with the charcoal from the decontamination kit.

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