FORT HOOD, Texas- Leaders and Soldiers with the 3rd Cavalry Regiment "Brave Rifles," participated in casualty evacuation leader professional development training Sept. 28, 2018, at Hood Army Airfield.
Even with part of the regiment deployed to Iraq, the leaders and Soldiers who remain on Fort Hood must maintain mission readiness. Helping to support mission readiness and develop leaders, the regiment conducts an LPD every week for its officers and senior noncommissioned officers.
This week, junior Soldiers were able to join their leaders and senior NCOs in CASEVAC training hosted by 3rd Squadron, 3rd. Cav. Regt.
"It's the foundation of everything we do as Soldiers and officers, so when we are in combat situations or supporting a natural disaster, we need to know how to evacuate casualties," said Maj. Joshua Shaver, home station mission commander, 3rd Sqdn.
Leaders and Soldiers learned to work together as a team, loading and unloading patients into and out of Stryker M1133 medical evacuation vehicles and HH-60 Black Hawk helicopters.
"Every individual is important, every task is important," said Shaver. "This training helps us to understand what individual task that, each soldier who is a part of the team, has to do to save lives."
He added, "In a combat situation, when there are enemies shooting at you, you don't have time to think, you just react and this training allows our Soldiers to do that."
As a new lieutenant in the Army and with the regiment, 2nd Lt. Liam Torrey, a security operations officer with 3rd Sqdn., stressed the importance of rehearsals.
"We train how we fight and what we are doing now is building that muscle memory so that the Soldiers are prepared," said Torrey.
The training took over a month to coordinate and with the help of Company C, 2nd Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, leaders and Soldiers also became familiar with ground-to-air communication.
"It's extremely crucial that we learn to work together and build these partnerships," said Sgt. 1st Class Travis Holley, a flight medic with Co. C.
"It helps to bridge the gap as to what needs to happen on your (ground) side and on our side," said Holley. "The further we can extend our relations with all the Soldiers on Fort Hood, the more successful we are going to be as a team."
After the training, the squadron conducted an after action review and shared lessons learned.
Deputy Commander Lt. Col. James Crane, 3rd Cav. Regt, said that he was impressed with the training and that he hoped the leaders and Soldiers learned just how much work it took to coordinate a CASEVAC request.
"We saw a lot of details and for the officers and NCOs, this is really the great partnership where it all comes together," said Crane.
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