I was awakened by the cadence call of the 420th as they passed our barracks.

 

 

The last two days were focused on medical training and on leaving everything clean for the next occupants.  Thursday evening, we all gathered at McCoy’s (the on-base club) where I learned that the reservists of the 801st Combat Support Hospital were here and getting ready to deploy, too.  Friday I would ride through heavy rain for the first part of my return trip.  The end of our training was in sight.

 

After breakfast Thursday we returned to the barracks for an hour.  Here, SGM Robinson sweeps under my bunk.

 

 

SFC Snow does everything with energy and enthusiasm.

 

 

As SFC Freeman says, you don’t have to clean it up if you keep it clean.  Last night it was rifles and pistols.  This morning it was barracks, equipment and the soldiers themselves.

 

I got an inspirational shot of  SFC Freeman in the shower!   I’m sure he won’t mind.

 

Mature Audiences Only

 

And then SFC Freeman’s big yellow school bus took us to Building 905.

 

 

This gentleman was waiting for us just inside the door.

 

 

LTC Kilhoffer told me that everyone going to Afghanistan must take the 40-hour Combat Lifesaver Course.

 

(In contrast, the enemy employs suicide bombers.)

 

 

After LTC Coates addressed us to acknowledge 13 soldiers who managed our training, we divided into three groups.  The groups rotated between three instructors many times for half-hour presentations on many medical subjects.  Question:  If a soldier has suffered an injury that has spilled his intestines on the ground, before you send him on to a doctor do you:

 

Stuff ‘em back in?

 

Chop ‘em off?

 

Ignore ‘em?

 

 

Best answer:  Ignore ‘em.  Just lay them on top of the patient and cover both wound and expelled organs with a large bandage.  (Make the bandage wet with the cleanest water available to resist dehydration.)  Good to know.

 

I will always place the mission first.

I will never accept defeat.

I will never quit.

I will never leave a fallen comrade.

 

The fourth follows from the first three.  People are going to get hurt.  People don’t come first.  The mission does.

 

Most civilians have no conception of “mission first”.  They can read the words of the Warrior Ethos, but they cannot appreciate them.

 

 

All the soldiers listened carefully and reacted helpfully.  None knew if he would be the patient or the one rendering aid.  Either way, its part of the job and they all wanted to know.

 

 

This instructor kept calling us “shipmates” but nobody minded.

 

 

It was serious business.

 

 

Which is why it was important to laugh.

 

 

 

Choking is serious, but pretending to be choking so that your partner can “Heimlich” you is a little bit funny.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still, everyone took the work seriously.  If you are supposed to be choking, your tongue should be out.  It’s a little thing, but its important.  Click here for a measure of the maturity with which these soldiers approached their work:

 

professionalism

 

So we bandaged each other.

 

 

 

And carried each other.

 

 

 

 

SGM Flummerfelt wanted SPC Collier to lift him.

 

 

And she tried.

 

 

But it was WO1 Sparks who would do the heavy lifting.

 

 

And then it was his turn to be lifted.

 

 

The medical training was a time for listening,

 

 

and kicking,

 

 

and dancing,

 

 

and studying,

 

 

and thinking

 

 

because soldiers place mission first.

 

 

And then we turned-in our bedding.

 

 

I took the fast road to Madison and then followed US 12 southeast.  That route took me through the town of Fort Atkinson that got its name from the last military action against Indians east of the Mississippi, as we learned during Det. 2’s trip to Apple River Fort.  Fort Atkinson includes a park named for General McCoy.

 

 

The park includes an heroic statue from the Great War.

 

 

At the foot of the statue is a plaque that dedicates the park to “the dead soldier”.

 

 

The Patriot Guard uses “fallen heroes” but I think the plural softens the message too much.  The Warrior Ethos says “fallen comrade” – singular.  After all, it’s the Soldier’s Creed, not the Soldiers’ Creed.

 

When I got home, my sister was walking our dog.  Her dog and our grandson were there too.  Back to the world… 

 

 

 

373 photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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