FORT IRWIN, Calif.-- In September, Fort Irwin revamped its new soldier orientation program, adding a three-hour introduction to master resilience training.
"We're using Wednesday morning to do Master Resilience Training," said Fort Irwin's Command Sergeant Major Dale Perez. "During the afternoon, Soldiers are briefed by Fort Irwin chaplains, who are followed by SHARP counselors who talk to them about Fort Irwin's sexual assault prevention and response program.
"The Army has the same issues in our culture that are in the American culture," Perez continued. "We've got suicides, domestic violence, sexual assault and violence, alcoholism, drug abuse. A lot of those issues are tied to the stresses of life."
The Jan. 2011 issue of American Psychologist, a journal of the American Psychologist Association, published an article on Comprehensive Soldier Fitness by then U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey, who wrote, "…we are moving beyond a 'treatment-centric" approach to one that focuses on prevention and on the enhancement of the psychological strengths already present in our soldiers."
Casey then noted that over 2,500 master resilience trainers had already been trained at the University of Pennsylvania. "…We are targeting to have them in every battalion and brigade in the Army, to help them design training plans and to teach our leaders how to instill resilience in their subordinates."
In March of this year, about 40 mid and senior level NCOs and officers, selected from commands across Fort Irwin, attended three weeks of master resilience training from trainers coming here from Fort Hood, the Army's first campus outside of University of Pennsylvania, where the program was first developed for professional athletes.
In an interview for a Sept. 7 article in Army Times, Col. Kenneth Riddle, director of Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness, is quoted as saying, "You're not alone in being skeptical and looking at this as a bit touchy-feely. People are skeptical, as was I. This is not what we're used to training. We're used to training soldiers how to kill bad guys. We're not used to teaching life skills."
Staff Sgt. Lonzo Shelley, one of the three trainers who helped teach the first master resilience training for new soldier orientation on Sept. 17, voiced similar thoughts.
REALIGNING THE OLD WAY OF THINKING
"It sounds kinda sucky, but it's about changing hearts and minds," said Shelley, a flight medic with the 2916th Aviation Battalion's Charlie Company. "It's really geared toward realigning the old way of thinking and the old way of interacting with Soldiers and leaders. Not necessarily to being more compassionate, but being more understanding. I think that will go a long way, connecting not only with the older Soldiers but the newer Soldiers.
"I think that's why they tapped the middle base, the newer E7's, because we're kind of in the middle," said the 16-year Army veteran, married, with three children, who deployed twice to Iraq.
"We can relate to the E7's, the First Sergeants, the colonels, the brand new privates and the little older E4s, and help them through whatever trials and tribulations. We're not here to always be that focal point and help them through it. We're here to give them the tools to be successful."
Staff Sgt. Anton Kiren, a troop master gunner with C Troop, 1st Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, who conducted the first module of the Sept. 17 training, said that master resilience training helps people to focus on the positive aspects of their daily lives, even as they reflect on everything that goes on in their lives.
"We do what's called, 'hunt the good stuff.' Pick three things that make you happy, what was good and share that with the class," Kiren said, in recalling his own master resilience training earlier this year.
"On the first day of our training, you had someone say something like, I'm happy because my cereal wasn't soggy this morning. By Day 14 or 15, you had people saying I've used these skills, and now I'm reconnecting with my teenage son with whom I haven't talked to in 15 years. You see how people are using the skills they learned, at home. A happier person is a more confident person, a healthier person.
CATASTROPHIZING
"If you're pessimistic, you're down all the way down, and on a downward spiral. You get called in by the sergeant major. 'Now, what am I going to do?' The course teaches you how to avoid those thinking traps. It's called catastrophizing…..It teaches you not to stress out on things you can't affect and teaches you to concentrate on things you can change."
Staff Sgt. Jorge Mendoza-Guzman, a National Training Center Operations group transport specialist, wished he had taken the master resilience course earlier, when he first reported to Fort Irwin as a Cobra Team observer-coach- trainer for the Operations Group.
Mendoza said his second combat deployment from Fort Lewis to Afghanistan had been particularly difficult, where he was assigned to look for IEDs with a combat engineer unit.
"Afghanistan was my school," said Mendoza. "I'm surviving, whatever I have left. I lost four very, very good buddies of mine. My former team leader, I lost there. It was just a pretty bad situation. But someone had to do it, clear the roads, save lives. I got to talk to myself that way. I came back …Oct 2010. I wasn't the same."
Mendoza was assigned to Fort Irwin in 2011 to be an Observer-Coach Trainer for NTC Operations Group Cobra Team.
"I had issues with my family, had issues with mostly everybody. I was in and out, having issues with drinking, issues with my family life, having issues at work also, definitely," Mendoza said.
"My combat tour, and now this Box. It's a double whammy. It all adds up. It's all simulated [out here] but I've known guys, after something happens here, they break down. They do whatever they need to do, to compose themselves.
Mendoza credits his non-commissioned officer in charge at that time for pointing him in the right direction. "He looked at the signs, where I wasn't getting enough sleep, I wasn't doing right," Mendoza said. "He said, 'Hey Chuck, go see somebody. You're not yourself.'
NOT A COMPLETE 360
"After that, I got seen, I got help. I don't drink any more, at all. It was a process; it took me about 45-60 days, just to ease on in. I didn't do a 360 completely, but as soon as I was back, everybody supported me.
"I got into this course because of that. I went there, came back, rejuvenated. I got transferred to the Lizard Team where I was in charge of a major logistics move, ETC--Exportable Training Capability."
Mendoza said that from June of last year to August of this year, he was part of a team that moved a large amount of military equipment to Hawaii for the Joint Pacific Multi-National Readiness Command. "I just finished that job. It was a big task. A lot of people played their parts. This was June, July of last year to last month.
"I went through some rough patches," Mendoza reflected. "But I put MRT in my everyday life.
"My daughter comes in, "Daddy, Daddy, today was a horrible day. I sit her down and say, 'Look, Jazel, all day cannot be a bad day. Tell me just one thing that went well.' 'Well, I was playing patty cake with my best friend. She was running up and down the hallways.' I say that's a good thing. She says, 'Yeah, I guess you're right.'"
"I tell her, 'That's all you got to do. Slow down, think about it. And hunt for the good stuff. Kinda look for it. Sometimes it might be hiding in plain sight.' So I practice it daily now. Yes."
Mendoza sees master resilience training embedded in all Army units.
"I think the goal is to make sure everybody has the chance to go in, grab on to resilience, a teacher or mentor," Mendoza said. "From the top to the bottom, from the bottom up, we're all a team. We have to depend on each other. We have to know each other. The MRT is now part of the Army."
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