13 May 2007
Well, I've been up on the DMZ for the past week and a half doing standardization and testing for the EFMB. There are 6 tasks all together, a written test, day and night land navigation, three combat lanes: one tests medical skills under fire, one tests basic soldiering skills - mainly protection from chemical environments, and a third to test evacuation of casualties; and the last event is a 12 mile road march.
For training week we spent a day at land nav and the three combat lanes to learn how they were going to grade and make sure that the steps they were looking for are the same we've learned over the years. We were literally on the DMZ, from the land navigation sight you can see the boarder, in fact if I had walked about 600 meters out of the land nav boundaries I would have walked up to the fence. So that in itself was interesting. Greg asked what the DMZ looks like and it doesn't look any different than the rest of the area, definitely not like a bombed out no man land that I thought it would be. Not even like the gold vault at Ft. Knox where you can see everything around it. There are mountains all over, not super high ones, I think the highest peak in the area I was in was over 1000 meters, but most were closer to 600. The trees are all blooming and green so it's really very pretty, it reminded me of the canoing trip I went on right before my freshman year up near Duluth. People also live right up to the fences, there are rice paddy's all along the roads which are narrow, paved, two way roads.
The training was fun. I didn't go there in the best mindset because of all the unfinished work I had waiting for me back at Casey and the un-suportiveness (I think I just made that word/phrase up) of our unit command towards everything, but I ended up being in a group with a sergeant in my platoon and one from another, both who I get along with well and made it very clear I couldn't fail:) As an officer, the younger enlisted guys made it clear that I should lead the way and get the badge, and despite the outcome they were impressed and proud of me anyways. But SGT Waln from my platoon was a huge asset to have while I was going through the training, he's a medic and helped teach me all the medical things I didn't know, as well as study for the written test with me which we both then passed.
The written test is the biggest knock out of the EFMB. Partially because the people who are forced to go to EFMB purposefully fail it so they can go home, so out of the 300 we started with, I was one of 58 who passed the written test. From there the next day SGT Waln and I, went to land navigation which we both passed along with Ben; three other people from our company made it but SSG Norton was the only one of them who passed her lane. The second day of testing we did the soldier's skills - or chemical protective skills day. It was not too much fun because the chemical protective suites add at least 10 degrees and even though it was only in the upper 70s, it felt hot! Plus you have to 'decontaminate' yourself with charcoal pads, so you're completely covered in charcoal, sweating, and trying to do all these tasks. But I passed all but three of those tasks, not enough to knock me out, but SGT Waln and Ben both missed too many tasks leaving me and SSG Norton to go after the badge ourselves.
The fourth task I did was the evacuation lane which included individual negotiation of obstacles as well as negotiating obstacles with a four person litter team and a litter with a 180lb casualty. It poured the day before we did this lane so needless to say we were all completely covered in mud, cold mud at that, Korean mud that sticks to you and as soon as it sticks to you chemically changes to never leave and weigh and extra ten pounds. This was actually the most fun lane for me. There just something about being clean, then crawling 4o meters through mud on your back and front that gets me happy. I was also one of about 15 people left out of the 300 which added pressure, but also made me realize maybe I know more of these tasks than I thought.
Unfortunately there is one task in EFMB that is mandatory to get correct, no ifs ands or buts about it, they record you to ensure what you say is correct, and thats the 9 Line medevac request. Now bear in mind this EFMB is the 3rd EFMB to be run the way it was, with combat lanes to simulate caring for casualties under fire, reacting to IEDs, loading helicopters, loading trucks with patients, and using the latest medical bandages the Army has. But the 9 line is the most out of date and obscure task in the entire testing. The 9 line is just that, 9 lines of information needed for a helicopter to come and pick up casualties. Each line is 'critical' information like your location, radio information, how many patients you have and how seriously injured they are, if you need extra equipment either to recover the patient or sustain life while in transit. For EFMB you have to use the phonetic alphabet and correct pronunciation of the numbers, so in the Army 3 is pronounced tree, 5 is fife, 9 is niner, then all the letters like alpha, bravo, charlie... you get the idea. So if you mess up one 3, 5, or 9 or one letter in the 9 line you're a no-go and out of EFMB, and that's why I'm writing this to you today and not tomorrow after the final event, I said "Line 9" not "Line niner", so one r and I'm back here. But it was still good training and I had fun most of the time. SSG Norton also missed too many tasks on the lane she was on so we all had to come home. It wasn't all bad though, today I have the day off, only because it's Sunday, but it's my first day off in almost a month so it was nice to have a couple hours to myself.
The next couple weeks will be getting our soldiers ready for the field exercise we're going to in the end of June. SSG Norton and I are also going to be training the soldiers on EFMB tasks since between the two of us we went through every lane. There may be an EFMB in the fall, if not in Korea in Japan or Hawaii that we'll go to, so if that's the case I'll be much more prepared for it than I was this time.
For training week we spent a day at land nav and the three combat lanes to learn how they were going to grade and make sure that the steps they were looking for are the same we've learned over the years. We were literally on the DMZ, from the land navigation sight you can see the boarder, in fact if I had walked about 600 meters out of the land nav boundaries I would have walked up to the fence. So that in itself was interesting. Greg asked what the DMZ looks like and it doesn't look any different than the rest of the area, definitely not like a bombed out no man land that I thought it would be. Not even like the gold vault at Ft. Knox where you can see everything around it. There are mountains all over, not super high ones, I think the highest peak in the area I was in was over 1000 meters, but most were closer to 600. The trees are all blooming and green so it's really very pretty, it reminded me of the canoing trip I went on right before my freshman year up near Duluth. People also live right up to the fences, there are rice paddy's all along the roads which are narrow, paved, two way roads.
The training was fun. I didn't go there in the best mindset because of all the unfinished work I had waiting for me back at Casey and the un-suportiveness (I think I just made that word/phrase up) of our unit command towards everything, but I ended up being in a group with a sergeant in my platoon and one from another, both who I get along with well and made it very clear I couldn't fail:) As an officer, the younger enlisted guys made it clear that I should lead the way and get the badge, and despite the outcome they were impressed and proud of me anyways. But SGT Waln from my platoon was a huge asset to have while I was going through the training, he's a medic and helped teach me all the medical things I didn't know, as well as study for the written test with me which we both then passed.
The written test is the biggest knock out of the EFMB. Partially because the people who are forced to go to EFMB purposefully fail it so they can go home, so out of the 300 we started with, I was one of 58 who passed the written test. From there the next day SGT Waln and I, went to land navigation which we both passed along with Ben; three other people from our company made it but SSG Norton was the only one of them who passed her lane. The second day of testing we did the soldier's skills - or chemical protective skills day. It was not too much fun because the chemical protective suites add at least 10 degrees and even though it was only in the upper 70s, it felt hot! Plus you have to 'decontaminate' yourself with charcoal pads, so you're completely covered in charcoal, sweating, and trying to do all these tasks. But I passed all but three of those tasks, not enough to knock me out, but SGT Waln and Ben both missed too many tasks leaving me and SSG Norton to go after the badge ourselves.
The fourth task I did was the evacuation lane which included individual negotiation of obstacles as well as negotiating obstacles with a four person litter team and a litter with a 180lb casualty. It poured the day before we did this lane so needless to say we were all completely covered in mud, cold mud at that, Korean mud that sticks to you and as soon as it sticks to you chemically changes to never leave and weigh and extra ten pounds. This was actually the most fun lane for me. There just something about being clean, then crawling 4o meters through mud on your back and front that gets me happy. I was also one of about 15 people left out of the 300 which added pressure, but also made me realize maybe I know more of these tasks than I thought.
Unfortunately there is one task in EFMB that is mandatory to get correct, no ifs ands or buts about it, they record you to ensure what you say is correct, and thats the 9 Line medevac request. Now bear in mind this EFMB is the 3rd EFMB to be run the way it was, with combat lanes to simulate caring for casualties under fire, reacting to IEDs, loading helicopters, loading trucks with patients, and using the latest medical bandages the Army has. But the 9 line is the most out of date and obscure task in the entire testing. The 9 line is just that, 9 lines of information needed for a helicopter to come and pick up casualties. Each line is 'critical' information like your location, radio information, how many patients you have and how seriously injured they are, if you need extra equipment either to recover the patient or sustain life while in transit. For EFMB you have to use the phonetic alphabet and correct pronunciation of the numbers, so in the Army 3 is pronounced tree, 5 is fife, 9 is niner, then all the letters like alpha, bravo, charlie... you get the idea. So if you mess up one 3, 5, or 9 or one letter in the 9 line you're a no-go and out of EFMB, and that's why I'm writing this to you today and not tomorrow after the final event, I said "Line 9" not "Line niner", so one r and I'm back here. But it was still good training and I had fun most of the time. SSG Norton also missed too many tasks on the lane she was on so we all had to come home. It wasn't all bad though, today I have the day off, only because it's Sunday, but it's my first day off in almost a month so it was nice to have a couple hours to myself.
The next couple weeks will be getting our soldiers ready for the field exercise we're going to in the end of June. SSG Norton and I are also going to be training the soldiers on EFMB tasks since between the two of us we went through every lane. There may be an EFMB in the fall, if not in Korea in Japan or Hawaii that we'll go to, so if that's the case I'll be much more prepared for it than I was this time.
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