The sounds of gunfire ring from the side of Moncrief Army Health Clinic as Soldiers from Fort Jackson
lay in the prone position in the grass assessing the area.
As they lock onto their targets, Staff. Sgt. Caleb Nieves hovers over them and yells "I don't care how
you do it, but I want to hear you go bang, bang!"
Obliging to his request, the group simulates hitting their targets with verbal ammo as a speaker plays the sounds of gunfire.
"Bang, bang, bang, bang," they repeat over and over.
Between Sept.13-16, about 350 Service members of Moncrief completed their annual Army Warrior
Task Training. The training was to help reiterate and polish their warrior skills and consisted of scenarios that the Soldiers had to work through.
"As medics that work in the hospital, we don't really get a chance to use these skills," said non-commissioned officer in charge Staff Sgt. Theodore Cieraszynski. "This refreshes basic Soldier skills and, although it is for everybody, this particularly helps the junior Soldiers the most. The senior soldiers have done these types of training a hundred times, but the junior Soldier, not so much."
The training started on the green trail beside Moncrief and ended at Semmes Lake. Soldiers had to
navigate their way through different stations before completing the training.
Training touched on skills such as land navigation, weapons maintenance, 9 line medevac, addressing a casualty, reacting to an unexploded ordnance, medical and reacting to indirect fire.
During the indirect fire exercise, Spc. Briana Scott acted as if she was the enemy. Dressed in bright
blue civilian clothing, she ran through the trees while soldiers shot verbal bullets at her.
"I think dressing up really helps the Soldiers think of this in a real life scenario," she said. "I enjoyed playing the part of giving them the extra push in the training."
The training course lasted about 30 minutes and Service members went in groups of 10 to 15. Cieraszynski said they wanted training to really focus on medical tasks. While completing the tasks, the Soldiers had to also travel with their wounded medical dummy.
"Since we are in the medical field, we wanted our training to focus on the addressing and caring of a casualty," Cieraszynski said. "Because that's what we would be doing if we were really out in the field, we would be taking care of people."
Maj. Christopher Blacknall, chief of Resource Management for Moncrief, said that this course helps him brush up on his medical skills.
"I'm not a medic, but I work in the hospital," Blacknall said. "I don't get to exercise my medical skills often so this helped me remember and touch up on things about caring for patients."
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