Lately one of our big projects has been teaching Combat Lifesaver to as many people in the battalion as possible.  Its a priority of the Battalion’s, but they tend to think that a CLS can replace a Medic. This training could mean the difference between life and death for a soldier until a medic can arrive and they need a good high quality course that the students will take seriously. Since I don’t do half-assed training, I focus on giving a serious and intensive course, ask my medics.  So I have been running these 4 day long courses almost every week on top of all our other support requirements.  The feedback has been really excellent and I believe that my personal philosophy on CLS has been making an impact on the quality of the courses.

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Its gotten pretty busy with teaching Combat Lifesaver and First Responder, coordinating lanes training, ranges, and just the everyday “Hoo-ha” of garrison existence.  Just a couple of things worth noting.

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I received an interesting piece of mail today, the annual Army Housing Survey.  Its a little survey asking about how we like on-post housing and our experiences with customer service, service calls, and quality.  Needless to say, my cardboard project housing received very poor scores. 

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I made it home Friday night. After a couple of weeks of 12 hour days, needles, trauma lanes, and applied tourniquets, I am a little battered but the better for it.  Although ours was a shortened version of the course designed for soldiers fresh off deployment, all the good stuff was there.  I got lots of great new information on medical equipment and training, as well as lots of practice on using it.  Combat Medic training doesn’t pull punches.  Yes, we use dummies and lots of fake blood, but every IV is placed on fellow soldiers, Tourniquets are applied for real on classmates, and we play for real.  The culmination being a series of “lanes” where we have to treat patients under duress and combat simulation.  The only things we “missed out” on were classes on stuff we already knew from having used it daily in Iraq.

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So I have been in class all week and we are getting ready to move to our new class location.  Its been a rather uneventful week, at least until today.  I had gotten back from class and was down the street at a laundromat when I received a call from my wife.

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Too Funny!  It certainly looks like a naked woman, but really, c’mon!  It did make me break out in a laugh though.

This two-picture combination photo provided by the White House shows Vice President Cheney, and a close-up of his sunglasses during a fishing trip on the Snake River in Idaho. That is not a naked woman reflected in Vice President Dick Cheney’s sunglasses. Although it kind of appears to be. It you blow up the picture, you can see it is Cheney’s hand gripping the handle of a fishing rod. The picture was posted on the White House Web site as one in a series of photos of Cheney outdoors. It created a buzz on the Internet on Friday and some cable television shows. (AP Photo/White House, David Bohrer)
- boston.com

P.S. I know I am a bit late, but I am kinda busy during the day..

The other day I had to go to the hospital to check on a soldier.  He had gotten in a serious accident related to his drinking, driving, then wrapping his car around a tree at a high rate of speed.  When I saw him, he was in relatively serious condition with a spinal fracture and a long road of therapy ahead.  He is now unsure about his future, but it probably involves some UCMJ, jail time, and possibly a less the honorable discharge.  I spoke to his parents afterward as they were concerned about his treatment and they brought up that he had been complaining of PTSD symptoms.  The thing is this particular soldier had never left the FOB, and our FOB never had a rocket or mortar land close to populated areas.  His job didn’t even require him to leave the TOC.

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I spent my tour in Iraq with a STOMP II Aid Bag.  This is a very nice and large Aid Bag.  However, there are several problems with it in my eyes that made it a less than perfect bag.  First of all, I am not a fan of the “one big pouch” design.  Granted inside the big center pouch is some zippered pouches and the large outside pouch has loops and zippered pouches, its just not configurable enough for me.  Secondly, its a big square without any real internal frame.  It has a soft padded foam back, and the straps are not big enough to shoulder the bag comfortably over an IBA.  My Aid Bag generally weighed about 60 -70 pounds.  I carried everything but the kitchen sink on my back, whether the particular mission called for it or not.  Sometimes I could get away with leaving it in the hummer while I carried a smaller homemade “leg rig” I designed from a SAW pouch and a couple of utility pouches.  The thing is the STOMP II ended up making my back ache terribly after a short time since the frame was soft and the bag didn’t sit right on my back due to the frame and straps.

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As I am sure you have noticed, the theme has changed.  Everything should work, including the new Portal Page.  The RSS Feed has moved though so the new link is here.  It shouldn’t change again, which is why I moved its location now.  The old link will still work until I dump the old template set.

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