Oy vai.
I decided to start breaking in my boots today. From all accounts, these type of boots take a few weeks to stretch out and take the roughness out of the canvas. I'm expecting blisters. I just probably should have waited until tomorrow.
At 0615 this morning, we had our formation to head up the hill to the big tent for IED and first aid training. Because of the hour, and the unexpected cloud cover, the heat wasn't an issue, so they had us walk instead of ride the buses. It was only about half a mile, but my feet hated me after wards.
In Vietnam, 90% of all combat deaths occurred before the casualty arrived at a medical facility, with 60% of those deaths resulting from loss of blood. Teaching us how to stop the bleeding in a variety of cases was the primary goal of the first aid training we received. Obviously a medic is going to be needed eventually, but the more blood the first responder can keep in the body immediately, the better chance the casualty has to survive later.
We started off with learning how to evaluate a casualty, insert a nasopharyngeal tube to assist in breathing, dress a wound, apply a tourniquet, and move a victim aided and unaided. Basic first aid for the most part, except for the tube. And though the training is addressed towards combat injuries, it can be applied to injuries of any sort.
Next was lunch. We had a choice of buying burgers and brats from an organization selling lunch for charity, or eating MREs. I chose the brats. I was fortunate in that my section was the first released for lunch. Even as one of the first people in line, the grill was already backed up, and talking to the cook while I waited for my food, he said he was told he'd only be cooking for 75-100 people. Apparently CRC thought the other 300 were going to be eating MREs. As I said before, I was fortunate.
After lunch came the gross part. It really wasn't that bad, but those with weak stomachs were glad they had already eaten.
First was training on how to treat a sucking chest wound. Gunshot or shrapnel wounds to the chest often penetrate the membrane around the lung letting in air. Because the air pressure in your lungs is less than the air pressure outside your body, the air forces itself inside your body and collapses the lung, making breathing difficult. The sound of the air going into your chest makes a sucking or hissing sound, thus the name of the wound. Remember how I said 60% of the deaths in Vietnam were from bleeding to death? Another 33% of deaths were caused by air in the chest collapsing a lung and squishing your heart and good lung to the side of your ribcage. It has a fancy name, but I don't remember it. As such, this type of wound was covered pretty thoroughly as well. To treat someone in this condition, you've got to seal the wound (entry and exit) with a piece of plastic and a bandage. The plastic can be any old thing. The side of an MRE bag was suggested since they will be prevalent. Then you drive a 14 gauge, 3" needle into their chest cavity to relieve the pressure. This allows the lung to re-inflate. This training was accompanied by pictures, practice on a dummy, and hands-on time with the biggest needle I'd ever seen.
Next was open abdominal wounds. We were told how to wrap organs that may be outside the body and bandage the wounded area. Essentially you just wrap the person in the largest bandaid you find and hope the medivac gets there quickly. Again, this was complete with practical exercise on the dummy and...pictures. Lovely. I learned just enough to know that I'd rather be shot in the chest than in the stomach. It's easier to fix as long as you don't get hit in the heart.
Last in this section was learning to how to tie dressings onto head wounds, and how to identify if the casualty has a brain injury. Essentially, if there are any cracks in the skull or palate, or spinal fluid leaking out of their ears, then they have a brain injury. Huh. Imagine that. Tie a bandage on it and call a helicopter. Done.
The last section of the day was IED and unexploded ordnance (UXO) training. Some of this training involved out instructor setting off pyrotechnics suddenly and unexpectedly. Exhilarating. Main lessons learned from these classes: 1) A IED can look like anything and everything, so no one has a clue what to look for in the field. 2) Red rocks, fence posts, metal roofing materials, etc. means stay away, there's a minefield over there. 3) If you didn't drop it, don't pick it up, no matter what.
The last one was the most important. Our instructor said he had a buddy in the engineer corps that had worked with explosives for 16 years who picked up a fist-sized IED with a pair of pliers, held it in front of his face, turned it over to inspect it, and tripped the anti-tamper mechanism installed on the detonator. He was killed instantly. Another tale he told us was of insurgents filling ballpoint pens with plastic explosive and rigging them to explode when the clicker was pressed. Then they tossed them over the walls of friendly bases. Someone wandering along the wall sees what looks to be a perfectly good pen, picks it up, clicks it to see if it works or not. Boom. No more hand, if you're lucky. And it doesn't even have to be as sinister as that. Afghanistan is a country with an estimated 10 million active landmines, most left over from the soviet occupation. Some of these landmines are the size of a candy bar. What might look like something that fell off a Humvee might be something that can kill you.
And that was the end of it, 12 hours after we began. The longest day by far. I told you my feet hated me. Upon inspection I don't yet have blisters, but it's only a matter of time.
*****
I forgot to mention a pretty neat experience I had yesterday in my previous post. Riding back from the CIF, I got to listen to a colonel (COL) and a lieutenant colonel (LTC) talk about their command experiences and the different things that they had experienced in their careers. The LTC also was an operations research analyst for a few years, which was an interesting wrinkle in his Army experience. H is getting ready to take command of a battalion this fall. A battalion is roughly 800 mean. Commanding one is a big deal. The COL was a former brigade commander. A brigade is about 4000 men. Commanding one of those is a bigger deal. Being a sponge while the COL mentored the LTC was a really pretty awesome.
I also got to talk with my cousin tonight. He's a specialist in a brigade support battalion headed to Kandahar, Afghanistan in July and called to see what I was up to and where I'd be headed. It was a good conversation. We're going to be in very different parts of the country, so we probably aren't going to be running into each other, but it'll be nice to know that some part of my family is only a couple hours away.
Tomorrow is the home stretch. Laundry, final packing, receive malaria pills and gas mask inserts and I'll be finished, ready to fly on Friday. After I fly out, my access to internet becomes a matter of question, as will my free time, so I don't know how frequently I'll be able to write here. I hope to post something 2-3 times per week, once I get settled, but that might be optimistic while I'm traveling.
See you tomorrow. Out here.
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