The U.S. Army Security Assistance Command’s Security Assistance Training Management Organization recently wrapped up its latest iteration of its Foreign Affairs Counter Threat course at Fort Liberty, North Carolina.
The five-day course provides lifesaving security training to personnel and family members working overseas while serving under the Department of State Chief of Mission authority.
“The course here is a FACT equivalency course,” said Sgt. 1st Class Griffin Perry, SATMO’s FACT NCOIC of training. “The proponent course is run by the Department of State at the Foreign Affairs Security Training Center in Blackstone, Virginia.”
The program at Fort Liberty is one of two in the entire Department of Defense and can train a maximum of 30 students per class. Typically, the unit holds 11 courses per year, one per month except for December.
Subjects covered during the course teach everything from risk assessment to tactical medical care to self-defense tactics.
“We teach security awareness and threat prevention, so how to recognize threat environments,” said Perry. “This raises the individual's awareness and helps develop the mindset that regardless of their job title, everyone plays an active role in safety and security.”
He said they also emphasize awareness of how personal activities and actions can either increase or decrease risk of threats.
In addition to classroom instruction, many of the modules provide practical application. Fire as a Weapon, for example, harps on the various ways adversaries use fire, whether as an explosive or by setting a building on fire to injure people and/or force them to leave the building, and how to respond. Students then must demonstrate how to employ proper techniques such as crawling low to escape.
“Our course follows the curriculum set by the DoS, but there are also sections we provide that are not requirements that our command deems important to know, such as 9 mm familiarization,” said Perry.
At the end of the week, many of the skills the students have learned are put to test in a culminating exercise.
“The students have to use driving techniques to escape a threat, react to direct fire, and they have to use the medical training they learned to treat a casualty along the way,” said Perry.
All the while, the students are also employing the intangible skills they’ve learned like risk assessment and stress management techniques.
“For the individuals that go through the course it prepares them for all of the challenges that they could potentially face at an embassy or overseas post that they may not have a lot of experience with here,” said Perry. “As for the impact to the post that they're assigned to, it creates a shared understanding and baseline of knowledge for all individuals that are assigned there ensuring a safer environment.”
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