F
Field Ethos
Guest
By Will Dabbs, MD
From the outside looking in, it is easy to question why basic training in the military is so dehumanizing. You show up on the first day and have to stand on a pair of painted footprints while some unhinged screaming lunatic actually teaches you how to walk. Why in heaven’s name would they do that?
Well, combat is humanity’s most unnatural act. When directed to charge up some bullet-swept hill against every natural human instinct, a soldier needs to be indoctrinated to do what he is told without question or hesitation. That all starts in basic training.
A friend was flying medevac at a sprawling U.S. Army training base. These were the days before GPS and night vision goggles, so navigating a Huey helicopter over a blacked-out training area on a moonless night was a bit like driving a car down the Interstate with your eyes closed. Suffice to say, there’s a technique to it.
It was hot this time of year, like Africa hot, and heat casualties were a problem. Some unfortunate schmuck had died of heatstroke a few weeks before, and the chain of command was serious about ensuring that didn’t happen again. As a result, the drill instructors were especially mindful of heat exhaustion among their enthusiastic, bald-headed charges.
My comrade got the call that a trainee had keeled over from the heat at about 0100 in the morning. When your core temperature climbs to dangerous levels, time is brain. It is critical to get the patient cooled down quickly. That meant ice packs and a chilled saline IV. The Dustoff crew loaded all of this stuff onboard the aircraft and was turning and burning in no time.
The training area used a common range control frequency that the dozens of units operating in the field monitored constantly. My fellow helo driver contacted the company with the overheated trainee and got a rough idea of their location. He then directed them to strip the Private out of his clothes, move him to the PZ (Pickup Zone), and prep for evac.
From the top, the training area was a just a big, black sea of nothing. Thinking quickly, the pilot made a call on the range control frequency and asked everybody to point their flashlights skyward to help guide him in to their location.
In moments, the entire training area lit up like Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Every soldier with a flashlight was now helpfully pointing it toward the heavens—hundreds of them all across the big, black expanse. Well, that didn’t work. The frustrated aviator got back on the radio and asked everyone to turn their flashlights off.
Now he specified that the one unit with the overheated Private have their trainees form a giant circle big enough to accommodate a Huey helicopter. They and only they were to fire up their flashlights. Everyone else without a critical heat casualty was to mind their own business. Miraculously, a single glowing circle emerged from the blackness. Now they were cooking with gas.
My buddy set up for an expeditious approach direct to the middle of this big circle. Time was critical, so he planted the 8,000-pound helicopter with authority. Then he glanced down through the chin bubble.
The ground clearance on a Huey is maybe a foot and a half. The Wire Strike Protection System consists of a big steel blade that pokes down in front of and underneath the machine to sever any power lines you might encounter inadvertently. Its point nearly touches the ground when at rest.
My friend looked down between his boots to see the terrified face of the overheated trainee lashed to a stretcher, the WSPS blade maybe 8 inches from his ear and the zillion-candlepower search light now burning just above his nose. Thank the Good Lord, the aircraft had fortuitously landed parallel to the stretcher rather than perpendicular. Had the geometry been 90 degrees out of phase, the big machine’s skids would have squashed the poor kid like a bug. The pilot had instructed them to move the casualty to the PZ, so they just put him in the center of it. Sigh…
Just as my friend was trying to restart his own heart, the crew chief came over the intercom and said, “Hey, boss, take a look outside.”
There in a giant circle surrounding the machine were fully 100 Army basic trainees wearing nothing but their underwear, all holding angle-head flashlights. Taking off your clothes in the middle of the night because a voice from the sky told you to do so likely didn’t make a great deal of sense to these young men. However, they were all just following orders.
The post The Naked Medevac appeared first on Field Ethos.
Continue reading...
From the outside looking in, it is easy to question why basic training in the military is so dehumanizing. You show up on the first day and have to stand on a pair of painted footprints while some unhinged screaming lunatic actually teaches you how to walk. Why in heaven’s name would they do that?
Well, combat is humanity’s most unnatural act. When directed to charge up some bullet-swept hill against every natural human instinct, a soldier needs to be indoctrinated to do what he is told without question or hesitation. That all starts in basic training.
The Setting
A friend was flying medevac at a sprawling U.S. Army training base. These were the days before GPS and night vision goggles, so navigating a Huey helicopter over a blacked-out training area on a moonless night was a bit like driving a car down the Interstate with your eyes closed. Suffice to say, there’s a technique to it.
It was hot this time of year, like Africa hot, and heat casualties were a problem. Some unfortunate schmuck had died of heatstroke a few weeks before, and the chain of command was serious about ensuring that didn’t happen again. As a result, the drill instructors were especially mindful of heat exhaustion among their enthusiastic, bald-headed charges.
My comrade got the call that a trainee had keeled over from the heat at about 0100 in the morning. When your core temperature climbs to dangerous levels, time is brain. It is critical to get the patient cooled down quickly. That meant ice packs and a chilled saline IV. The Dustoff crew loaded all of this stuff onboard the aircraft and was turning and burning in no time.
What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate…
The training area used a common range control frequency that the dozens of units operating in the field monitored constantly. My fellow helo driver contacted the company with the overheated trainee and got a rough idea of their location. He then directed them to strip the Private out of his clothes, move him to the PZ (Pickup Zone), and prep for evac.
From the top, the training area was a just a big, black sea of nothing. Thinking quickly, the pilot made a call on the range control frequency and asked everybody to point their flashlights skyward to help guide him in to their location.
In moments, the entire training area lit up like Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Every soldier with a flashlight was now helpfully pointing it toward the heavens—hundreds of them all across the big, black expanse. Well, that didn’t work. The frustrated aviator got back on the radio and asked everyone to turn their flashlights off.
Plan B
Now he specified that the one unit with the overheated Private have their trainees form a giant circle big enough to accommodate a Huey helicopter. They and only they were to fire up their flashlights. Everyone else without a critical heat casualty was to mind their own business. Miraculously, a single glowing circle emerged from the blackness. Now they were cooking with gas.
My buddy set up for an expeditious approach direct to the middle of this big circle. Time was critical, so he planted the 8,000-pound helicopter with authority. Then he glanced down through the chin bubble.
The ground clearance on a Huey is maybe a foot and a half. The Wire Strike Protection System consists of a big steel blade that pokes down in front of and underneath the machine to sever any power lines you might encounter inadvertently. Its point nearly touches the ground when at rest.
My friend looked down between his boots to see the terrified face of the overheated trainee lashed to a stretcher, the WSPS blade maybe 8 inches from his ear and the zillion-candlepower search light now burning just above his nose. Thank the Good Lord, the aircraft had fortuitously landed parallel to the stretcher rather than perpendicular. Had the geometry been 90 degrees out of phase, the big machine’s skids would have squashed the poor kid like a bug. The pilot had instructed them to move the casualty to the PZ, so they just put him in the center of it. Sigh…
Just Following Orders
Just as my friend was trying to restart his own heart, the crew chief came over the intercom and said, “Hey, boss, take a look outside.”
There in a giant circle surrounding the machine were fully 100 Army basic trainees wearing nothing but their underwear, all holding angle-head flashlights. Taking off your clothes in the middle of the night because a voice from the sky told you to do so likely didn’t make a great deal of sense to these young men. However, they were all just following orders.
The post The Naked Medevac appeared first on Field Ethos.
Continue reading...