CONTINGENCY OPERATING SITE MAREZ, Iraq- As the U.S. Army's commitment to advising, training and assisting Iraqi Security Forces is underway, training takes many forms for Soldiers in the 4th Advise and Assist Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division.
Medics assigned to C Company, 27th Brigade Support Battalion, 4th AAB, 1st Cav. Div., are currently training Iraqi medics assigned to the 3rd Federal Police Division in Mosul to improve their skills and confidence in how take care of their fellow policemen.
Staff Sgt. Willie Gray, a native of Greenville, S. C., has been training Iraqi medics for about a month at the troop medical clinic on COS Marez.
"We've been training the 3rd Federal Police's medics on basic Level One care," said Gray. "We've trained on a variety of tasks to include sick call procedures, ear disorders, administering fluids intravenously, trauma care, and some physical therapy."
Today, 3rd Federal Police medics Hussin Ali and Mohammad Furhan learned how to measure and build casts to immobilize fractures.
"This training is perfect," said Furhan, a native of Diwaniyah. "We get a lot of training. It's great because this is practical application instead of just classroom theory."
Furnhan has been a police medic for about three years. He says his family is optimistic about the work he is doing and the security level in Iraq now.
Hussin Ali, is also stationed in Mosul, away from his home and family. Both Ali and Furnhan work for about two weeks and then return to their homes for a week to see their families.
"We thank our friends at the TMC for the great training," said Ali. "It's a great benefit for us and allows us to train the medics at our unit to get better."
Staff Sgt. Gray is about to move on to other duty in Ninewa Province. Both Ali and Furhan say they will miss him. He is a great teacher and very easy to work with.
Training opportunities like these between Iraqi medics and the medics with C Co., 27th BSB, are part of the overall mission of the Long Knife Brigade and U.S. Division North to advise, train and assist the ISF during Operation New Dawn and will continue until they redeploy later in 2011.
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