Combat Life Saver – Fun For All

Ah, yes, the Combat Life Saver Course.

I went to that course with a bunch of guys from my SF unit. Shortly thereafter, I went to a civilian EMT course. In the EMT course, they refer to the NPA (naso-pharyngial airway) as the “Bugle of Truth”.

Apparently, in the civilian world, a whole lot of EMS calls involve junkies playing unconscious possum in order to get cool meds. Well-practiced junkies can even feign unresponsiveness to the Sternal Rub, which is the standard method of determining Level Of Consciousness; and if you’ve ever experienced the Sternal Rub, you know how bloody painful that is (Hell, we use that in my martial arts practice to torment people all the time, but we call it some cool Japanese name).

But nobody, not anybody, according to the EMT cadre, can feign unconsciousness during the insertion of an NPA. Just the threat of such insertion will supposedly rouse any junkie who has previously tried to bluff their way through an NPA insertion during a prior med quest. Thus the name “Bugle of Truth”. If you want to know if somebody is faking unconsciousness, stuff an NPA up their rose sniffer and see what happens.

Therefore, while PFC Nasal may indeed have been “That Guy” and a poltroon, he still deserves substantial hard guy points if he was actually able to accept an NPA without being cracked in the base of the skull with an e-tool immediately beforehand.

While we didn’t get to force administer an NPA to a conscious victim, there were two highlights to our CLS course; the IV stick and the CLS obstacle course.

Ah, the IV stick, such sweet memories…

Since we were a bunch of SF guys, we were all of course in studly shape. Especially one of us, who I shall refer to as SPC Ropes because a.) he had big giant ropes of veins all up and down his arms (which will come into play here in a moment), and b.) he was a 6’4” Latin stud muffin with flawless mocha skin, bulging muscles, the aforementioned roped veins, silky voice, and big doe eyes, plus the skills and will to use them all to just rope in women wherever he went, even when he was overtly trying not to do so. (The bastard. The entire unit hated him forever for those traits. No one man should be so genetically blessed.)

Everybody in my team was, of course, a first time go on the IV stick block of instruction; knowing full well the merciless and demeaning harassment that would be waiting for us back at The Unit were we not to be first time gos. This was especially, super, double true in my case since I was not only supposed to be training to be an 18D (SF medic) in the first place, but I was also designated to be the first line of medical support for the SWTD (the Special Warfare Training Detachment and not some new weaponized form of venereal disease, as some keep insisting) upon return from this course. Any failure to perform on my part would be met with relentless, painful, humiliating, Geneva Convention violating “corrective action”. So, yeah, first time gos on all of our parts.

Another of the units in attendance at the course, however, had brought along a portly, demotivated “That Chick”. For whatever reason, she just couldn’t wrap herself around the IV stick protocol; and she blindly stabbed away at her partner until that partner broke down into tears and flat out refused to play anymore.

The CLS cadre called out to the class that he needed some hardened young soldier with big veins to help sort out our hapless classmate. SPC Ropes promptly rolled his shoulders in, dropped his arms into his lap, and did his all out best to dematerialize himself into his seat back. It was the only time I ever saw SPC Ropes be shy about his physique. That mighty physique had not gone unnoticed by the cadre, however; who spun about, pointed straight at SPC Ropes and asked in a sickeningly sweet voice: “Hey there, SPC Airborne, how about Leading The Way by coming over here and squaring away your fellow soldier?” And there was just no place to run…

So SPC Ropes sadly heaved himself to his feet and, with slumped shoulders, shambled over to “That Chicks” table; whereupon, IV needle clenched in her fist like an icepick, she began to hammer away at SPC Ropes forearm like a spider monkey trying to juice a grapefruit with a straw. SPC Ropes assumed the obligatory hard guy position and uttered not a sound. Throughout his ordeal, though, he kept his big doe eyes fixed on us over at our table and never, before or since, have I seen such a woebegone, lost puppy dog, please-save-me expression etched on any human being’s face.

Much to SPC Ropes consternation, far more bodily fluids were accumulating on our table than on his; as snot bubbles freely mixed with tears of mirth while we howled with laughter and slapped the table in raucous amusement at our teammates torment. This behavior, or course, served only to further fluster “That Chick”. While she redoubled her efforts and commenced to scratch away at SPC Ropes forearm like a ferret digging for a cracker, our table received a stern reprimand for “Conduct Unbecoming”. So much for properly representing “The Quiet Professionals”.

Eventually, “That Chick” managed to saw away enough of SPC Ropes forearm that sufficient blood flow was established to get some color into the needles flash chamber, and the cadre reluctantly gave her a go at that station. We all quickly memorized “That Chicks” face, and were in consensus that should any of us ever look up through a red haze of pain and confusion to see her face floating above ours, we would promptly pull the pin on whatever most-casualty-producing-weapon we could get our hands on and go out with some dignity, rather than be subjected to this particular Combat Life Savers tender ministrations.

The final day of the CLS course was a mini-FTX (Field Training Exercise), wherein we rucked about from one camo netted training station to the next, practicing wound dressing, bone splinting, maintaining airways, history and assessments, packaging for transport, and all that sort of rot (no IV sticks in the field, dammit). The culmination of the mini-FTX was the CLS obstacle course, in which we were supposed to put all the separate pieces together.

Now, bear in mind that this course was being conducted in one of those mid-Eastern states whose sole purpose for existence is to provide remote, joyless, searing hot or bitterly cold training grounds for just such activities as this one. This being the middle of summer, we got the searing hot, no water and no shade and no amenities anywhere variety of training environment.

The CLS obstacle course was an approximately quarter mile loop littered with walls, barricades, barbed wire obstacles, trenches, ditches, sand dunes, and various unfriendly terrain features. The goal was to load the heaviest, most lard assed member of your unit onto the litter, negotiate the course, and load the litter into the proper place in the HUMMV Ambulance, all without dropping lard ass onto his noggin. Of course, we had to do this in the midday sun, in full TA-50 (rucksack, LCE, Kevlar, Pro-mask, etc.) and weapons, continuously maintaining a security perimeter and proper tactical posture; while volunteer Opfor (Opposing Forces) bombarded us with frag sims (simulated grenades), small arms fire, and creative verbal abuse.

In our unit, we referred to this sort of thing as “Good Stuff”, so of course we volunteered to go first. So we loaded up SPC Lard Ass onto the litter and took off. This presented us with a conundrum. On the one hand, we were determined to excel at the course. On the other hand, we were mightily tempted to dump SPC Lard Ass (yeah, C-rd-v-, I’m talkin’ ‘bout you) on his noggin because he so richly deserved it, but doing so would cost us points on the course. Glad to say, unit integrity won out, and we refrained from sending SPC Lard Ass off the course wearing a C-collar for real.

So we smoked the course and showed up at the other end hopping up and down and hollering “Yippy! That was fun! Can we go again, Dad, can we??”. Meanwhile, the other units were looking with fear and revulsion at the course, and at us, and then looking up at the midday sun, and then looking back at the course, and at us, and suddenly deciding that they were far more interested in going back and practicing sticking each other with large bore needles; because at least the classrooms were air conditioned and not currently occupied by a small gaggle of reeking, dangerous looking ruffians with a festering, maniacal look in their eyes.

And that was pretty much the end of the official CLS course activities. But, being the good little wannabe SF troops that we were, we proceeded to steal whatever med kit we could get our filthy hands on, and then divvying up the resulting swag evenly amongst ourselves. I really lost out on this deal, too, because the results of my finagling the cadre was a full case each of drive-on rags (triangular cravat bandages, for the not-high-speed among you) and field dressings, which I had to share with my teammates who had managed to steal nothing more interesting than a bunch of ace bandages, muscle wraps, and cotton bandages such as could be obtained at any pharmacy. But, it’s the thought that counts…

So, Yeah, Combat Life Saver school. Good Times… (Thanks for the memories, Skippy)

Oh, BTW, for thems of you as think that “high-speed-low-drag” is a good thing to be and equates to cool guy status; what’s the most high speed, low drag thing around?? Answer: An Airborne Trooper with a complete parachute malfunction, right before he hits the ground.

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 9:16 pm and is filed under Guest Story. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.