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Trainers train for overseas mission

  • Published
  • By Sgts. 1st Class Kutura Moorer and Narda Grant
  • 1st Battalion, 314th Infantry Regiment
JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J. --  Leaders of 174th Infantry Brigade and 72nd Field Artillery Brigade, First Army Division East train at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., in preparation for an advise and assist training mission in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.

Although First Army does not deploy as brigades or companies, it does provide highly trained officers and noncommissioned officers with particular skill sets to fulfill mission requests on order. Eight joint base Soldiers are scheduled to serve as embedded trainers for host nation security forces in Afghanistan. The team conducted additional training with four additional Soldiers from 4th Infantry Division at Fort Polk, La., during their follow-on collective skills training. These four active component soldiers will serve as the team's drivers and gunners down range, completing the small team squad-sized element.

The small team, six officers and two noncommissioned officers, have been training individual and collective Soldier skills on the very ranges many of them ran and supervised a couple months ago. The four-day Combat Life Saver course was once the training responsibility of the only noncommissioned officer on the team.

"Having been the lead CLS instructor here before, and now being on the other side, coming through with the security team, I know the training they're getting is good," said Sgt. 1st Class Micah Welintukonis, former NCO in charge of the post-mobilization CLS course and now assigned as the team's combat medic.

Army Capt. Clinton Brooks, an Infantry officer assigned to 1st Battalion, 314th Regiment, is the executive officer in charge of plans and operations for the security force assistance team scheduled to work closely, training and advising their Afghan counterparts. He has been to both Iraq and Afghanistan and served as a platoon leader and company commander during combat operations. Brooks discussed the importance of CLS training and qualification, especially in small teams operating more or less independently.

"Right now we are scheduled to support, train and advise the Afghan uniformed police," explained Brooks. Everybody on the team needs to be CLS qualified at a minimum," insisted Brooks. "It works, it's proven, I've seen it; tourniquets work, they save lives."

Brooks has been married to his wife Nicole for nine years; together they have endured two deployments and continue to raise two children, Brody, 7 and Addison, 5.

"The most important things to remember about CLS are controlling bleeding, managing the airway and treating penetrating injuries," explained Staff Sgt. Glendon Brown, First Aid and preventive medicine instructor at the CLS lane. "This is the way we can save lives."

The security assistance team conducted days of classroom and hands-on training, and completed a series of written and oral examinations. Lastly, they took part in the CLS cumulating exercise held at the Fort Dix Medical Simulation Training Center. Here the security transition team reacted to causalities in a replicated "real-world" environment.

"At the 'Mystic,' there's smoke, limited visibility, loud noises, and lots of blood - we try to create an atmosphere of chaos to see how well they react and perform as a team," said Brown about the Fort Dix MSTC.

Brown shared that there is a lot of information presented in the four days of CLS training and that it is essential for trainees to practice and revisit what they learned. Welintukonis, Brown's former supervisor, agrees wholeheartedly.

"Operating as a team, continuing to work on muscle memory so we react rather than think about what's going on is the overall goal," said Welintukonis. "We will continue to do additional training, training doesn't stop here or over there," added Welintukonis. This mission will be Welintukonis' third combat tour. He has been to the Iraq theater of operations twice; this will be his first deployment to Afghanistan.