By Spc. John Onuoha, 6-8 CAV., 2IBCT UPAR
YAVORIV, Ukraine - Soldiers of 6th Squadron, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division conducted Emergency Medical Technician training here, November 8.
An Emergency Medical Technician is a specially trained medic certified to provide basic emergency services to a victim before and during transportation to the hospital. EMT training is done once every two years to recertify medics. The training lasted seven days and consisted of classroom training and practical exercises.
A team of instructors from the 7th Army Training Command, Combined Arms Training Center, Vilseck, Germany conducted the training. The CATC delivers individual training and professional education to U.S. Soldiers, Department of the Army and host nation civilians, and multinational partners through the most efficient, and effective means available to ensure readiness and interoperability.
Sgt. 1st Class Sherrie Porter, a medical instructor with the 7th ATC, said it is always good as a mobile team to go out and train Soldiers. Every year medics are supposed to get together to conduct medical assessment and evaluation training, to keep their credentials current.
The training consisted of eight training tables. Tables one through seven involved various medical training exercises. The eighth table is the evaluation phase, when students are tested on everything they have learned.
During the exercise, Soldiers were faced with common issues that they might experience and then provided possible solutions. The students worked as a team during the training, which gave them the opportunity to come together as professionals, exchange ideas, learn new things and brush up on their basic skills.
"I love working with my Soldiers," said Sgt. Anthony Geckeler, a medic with 6-8 CAV. "They have a lot of knowledge, even the young guys who have done EMT before in the civilian world. We all can gather from each others experience."
There were junior Soldiers in the training who had the chance to learn from more experienced Soldiers. The course gave them an opportunity to learn special techniques and more efficient ways of executing their tasks as medics.
"This has been an outstanding group. It is always easy coming in as a mobile training team when you have an outstanding group that is already well trained," Porter said. "They have taken everything in stride, they have taken what we are teaching and what we are doing. They are fantastic."
6-8 CAV is deployed in support of Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine whose mission focuses on building a sustainable and enduring training capacity and capability within the Ukrainian land forces.
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