Photo By Spc. Brandon Robert | U.S. Army Soldier Capt. Virgil Pop, the chaplain assigned to 6th Battalion, 101st...... read more read more
ILLESHEIM, Germany – Soldiers of the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)’s unit ministry team (UMT) participated in a ministry combat medical course in Grafenwoehr, Germany, Nov. 2-6.
The course is designed to train chaplains and enlisted religious affairs specialists (RAS) on how to provide basic medical care while in a tactical environment while also providing religious rites to service members.
“If you think about ministry, it’s holistic in a body, mind and soul kind of way. What this course helped us to understand and do better was not only to pray for the patient, but to also take care of the physical wounds,” said Capt. Virgil Pop, a chaplain assigned to 6th Battalion under the 101st CAB.
Pop said that there are three core competencies that chaplains and RAS follow: nurture the living, care for the wounded and honor the fallen. He said that the course was set up in different phases where they delved into the different aspects that go into each of those competencies.
“We are usually seen as being an office job, and this training put us more into what we would do in combat and showed that at the end of the day, we are Soldiers first,” said Pfc. Samantha Dingman, RAS for 6th Battalion. “A lot of what we learned here was stuff I hadn’t seen before, and we got a lot of hands on experience.”
The first few days consisted of talking about nurturing the living in different environments, from being at home to being deployed in a combat zone. This section focused on their ability to provide pastoral care in a combat environment, as well as work on their mortuary affairs knowledge.
The middle portion focused on caring for the wounded. While focusing on this tenant, the ministry team members participated in field exercises to practice what they learned under a high-stress environment.
During the exercises, the religious team learned how to stabilize wounded Soldiers and how to transport them to safety by calling in MEDEVAC assistance. They also learned how to assist in responding to a mass casualty event.
“War is chaos,” said Pop. “Being able to practice our skills in a fast paced environment with lots of pops and bangs and people yelling at you definitely made me better able to perform in this type of situation.”
The last few days of the class focused on honoring the fallen. This involved learning how to provide services to memorialize Soldiers that are no longer with us. Pop said that in some cases, there isn’t time to conduct a full memorial service due to tactical requirements, so they practiced hasty memorial services to render honors earned by fallen Soldiers.
“Overall, this was a great birds eye view of what it means to be a chaplain and a religious affairs specialist. This is what the standard is,” said Pop. “Being able to work as a team with the enlisted religious affairs specialists during training was also helpful … it’s something that more of our trainings would benefit from.”
Although a big part of the training focused on treating several different types of trauma, physical trauma isn’t the only injury that chaplains and RAS learn to treat on and off of the battlefield.
“We help Soldiers deal with emotional trauma and teach them how to deal with that within the military,” said Pop. “You can get trauma from being in a traumatic event, but you can also deal with drama from just seeing an accident. We are here for all of it.”
The training also covered self care for the chaplains and RAS that provide support services to Soldiers. “While providing religious support to those who need it, it’s important that we also take care of ourselves and each other and know what our left and right limits are and what we can do as a Soldier,” said Dingman.
“I already knew the basic fundamentals of medical tasks, but I learned a lot about how I could handle myself under pressure,” said Staff Sgt. Alejandro Navarro, 101st CAB RAS. “As a unit ministry team, we have a lot of experience communicating with Soldiers and providing religious services in a garrison environment, but we don’t get a lot of opportunities for this type of hands-on, job specific training. Having this training is so important to being able to better serve our Soldiers and to be able to assist the chaplain in his duties.”
| Date Taken: | 11.06.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 11.13.2020 10:17 |
| Story ID: | 382948 |
| Location: | GRAFENWOEHR, DE |
| Web Views: | 56 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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