FORT BENNING, Ga., (Dec. 10, 2014) -- Training is necessary throughout the Army, but it is people like Sgt. 1st Class Donald McElroy who make the most of his training and apply it to every day life.
McElroy recently attended the Master Resilience Trainer Level 1 course here and said he anticipates attending the Level 2 course as soon as he can. Not only did McElroy say he found the course helpful, he reiterated a lot of the information to a friend going through a difficult time.
McElroy said he was alarmed by the state of mind of his friend, a master-rated jumpmaster, Ranger-qualified Soldier with two deployments with the 75th Ranger Regiment and two deployments with 82nd Airborne. His friend said his wife's attitude toward him was diminished and he was ready to give up and consider divorce.
"As he talked, I realized I was going into an MRT scenario; this was the real-time resilience like they talked about in class," McElroy said. "It started off as two old Soldiers talking ... then it went on to 'what do you need to do', or 'what do you want to do to better your situation.'"
McElroy said he listened to his friend's concerns and then asked his friend to think of the last time he had sat down and thought of all the good things in his life, something he learned through the MRT course.
"That was like day one of the MRT course, 'Hunt the Good Stuff,'" McElroy said, laughing as he realized he was using his skills on a friend in need. "I believe this training works."
Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness is a part of the Army's Ready and Resilient Campaign, which promotes physical and psychological fitness and encourages personal and professional growth, according to the csf2.army.mil website. CSF2 is made up of three main components: online assessment and self-development done through the Global Assessment Tool 2.0, training including MRT, Institutional Resilience Training and Performance Enhancement, and metrics and evaluation.
This year alone, approximately 4,000 newly arrived Soldiers have received Resilience Skills Training relating to CSF2 at Fort Benning, said Samuel Rhodes, Fort Benning CSF2 program manager.
RST is given to Soldiers new to the installation during in-processing to better prepare them for the transition to a new organization and increase their individual resilience competence awareness.
Rhodes said more spouses are attending RST with their Soldiers and he sees that as a significant success.
McElroy said his favorite part of the MRT course was the raw and uncensored portion where Soldiers were given the floor to discuss anything on their minds. He said he also found value in the goal-setting and energy-management portions.
Through CSF2 training, the Army Family, including Soldiers, their Families and Army civilians are provided hands-on training and self-development tools so they are better able to cope with adversity, perform better in stressful situations and thrive in life.
"We can control our thoughts, and if we control our thoughts, then we might not say or do something that is going to get us in trouble or put us into some sort of downward spiral that is going to cause other people undue pain," McElroy said.
Social Sharing