NcDeuce
12-10-2003, 09:32 AM
Competition brings out soldiers' motivation
While Fort Campbell soldiers are deployed to the Middle East, The Leaf-Chronicle will provide periodic updates of troops' activities as available from the 101st Airborne Division Public Affairs in Iraq and other sources.
Teams representing eight units in the Northern Iraq area of operations recently squared off at Mosul Airfield to compete against one another in the Combat Medic Challenge.
The contest was the first division-sponsored competition in Iraq. The competition gave Army medics the chance to display skills normally seen only on the battlefield in life-or-death situations.
The competition was based on the Expert Field Medical Badge exam, a week-long course.
Each four-person team had to go through a grueling set of challenges before reaching the finish line and tallying up their scores.
After a written test and medical evacuation drill, the challengers moved two miles up the road to the litter carry/obstacle course. This station was considered by most of the soldiers to be the most physically demanding portion of the competition.
Soldiers were given a litter, loaded down with sandbags for weight and a rubber facemask to identify the casualty's head. They had to carry the litter through five obstacles, keeping in mind the safety and well being of the "injured" person.
The fourth stop in the challenge involved communication and the last challenge was the EMT station.
After the last team finished, their scores were totaled. The scoring system was based on the overall time and scoring in each of the six stations. 1st Battalion, 377th Field Artilllery Regiment, won the competition.
The top three teams, best male, best female and the best overall team received more than $10,000 prizes from a variety of companies sponsoring the event.
Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, was on hand to announce the winners and congratulate all those who participated. He said the event helped boost morale, camraderie and teamwork among all the medics.
"It's a great day to be a Screaming Eagle medic," he said. "I know what it's like to be on your back with a hole in your chest and have a Screaming Eagle medic looking you in the eyes and telling you that you're going to be OK."
http://www.theleafchronicle.com/news/stories/20031210/localnews/8603-2740.jpg
Pfc. Jerimiah Siena and his teammates with the 21st Combat Support Hospital carry a sand-bagged litter through a trench at the combat medic challenge. The cold, waist-deep water didn't deter the soldiers from pushing on and completing the station.
If you guys didn't know, Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus was shot at close range in the chest by an M16. And another cool tidbit: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was the doctor who operated on Petraeus.
Gunshot incident bonds Senate leader, 101st leader
Friendship forged after life-threatening episode in 1991
WASHINGTON (AP) -- When Maj. Gen. David Petraeus first met Sen. Bill Frist they were in an operating room. One man was a patient felled by a M-16 gunshot wound to the chest; the other the surgeon who would save him.
The life-threatening episode in 1991 helped forge a friendship that today stretches across the globe, where Petraeus commands the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq and Frist leads the Senate as Republican majority leader. The two talked as recently as last Wednesday, the start of the Iraq war.
"In his mind, he introduces me as the surgeon who saved his life and shows his scar to demonstrate," Frist, R-Tennessee, said in an interview Thursday night.
Frist, a heart surgeon at the time at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, operated on Petraeus after he was shot in the chest with an M-16 round fired at close range by a careless soldier.
Recalling that afternoon in 1991, Frist said he got a call from the emergency room that a person with a gunshot wound to the left chest was coming in. When Petraeus arrived, Frist put in a chest tube and it was clear the patient was bleeding faster than blood could be replenished.
Frist explained to Petraeus on the way to the operating room that there was risk of infection from the bullet.
"Halfway through the explanation, he said, 'Doctor, let's go get this over with; you need to tell me nothing more,"' Frist recalled.
"He was tough, a real soldier. It fits with his overall image with jumping out of airplanes, breaking his pelvis," he said, referring to the commander's surviving the collapse of his parachute 60 feet up during a free fall jump a few years back.
Petraeus was out of bed within 12 hours of surgery -- half the time it takes for the average patient, something Frist attributes to his top physical condition.
Frist recalled Petraeus "apologizing for the guy who shot him."
The 1st Brigade of the 101st started arriving Thursday at an undisclosed location near Baghdad.
Its arrival comes just four days after a grenade attack on a 101st Airborne command center in Kuwait took the lives of two American officers and injured 14 others. An Army sergeant is accused in the attack. Petraeus was not at the scene.
Last week Frist called Petraeus to express his respect for his leadership and for the soldiers he's leading into battle.
"I said I'd look forward to calling him, and asked for the area code in Baghdad so I could call him in the near future in Baghdad," the senator said.
The two attended the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, at different times, and in October they ran the Army 10-miler together in Washington.
Although they started at the same time, Petraeus quickly disappeared in the crowd ahead of Frist, running about a 7-minute mile.
http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/28/sprj.irq.war.101.commander.ap/story.frist.101.jpg
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, left, and Chairman of the Armed Services Committee Sen. John Warner.
http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/28/sprj.irq.war.101.commander.ap/story.v.101.jpg
Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus, right, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, right, with Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, V Corps commander
While Fort Campbell soldiers are deployed to the Middle East, The Leaf-Chronicle will provide periodic updates of troops' activities as available from the 101st Airborne Division Public Affairs in Iraq and other sources.
Teams representing eight units in the Northern Iraq area of operations recently squared off at Mosul Airfield to compete against one another in the Combat Medic Challenge.
The contest was the first division-sponsored competition in Iraq. The competition gave Army medics the chance to display skills normally seen only on the battlefield in life-or-death situations.
The competition was based on the Expert Field Medical Badge exam, a week-long course.
Each four-person team had to go through a grueling set of challenges before reaching the finish line and tallying up their scores.
After a written test and medical evacuation drill, the challengers moved two miles up the road to the litter carry/obstacle course. This station was considered by most of the soldiers to be the most physically demanding portion of the competition.
Soldiers were given a litter, loaded down with sandbags for weight and a rubber facemask to identify the casualty's head. They had to carry the litter through five obstacles, keeping in mind the safety and well being of the "injured" person.
The fourth stop in the challenge involved communication and the last challenge was the EMT station.
After the last team finished, their scores were totaled. The scoring system was based on the overall time and scoring in each of the six stations. 1st Battalion, 377th Field Artilllery Regiment, won the competition.
The top three teams, best male, best female and the best overall team received more than $10,000 prizes from a variety of companies sponsoring the event.
Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, was on hand to announce the winners and congratulate all those who participated. He said the event helped boost morale, camraderie and teamwork among all the medics.
"It's a great day to be a Screaming Eagle medic," he said. "I know what it's like to be on your back with a hole in your chest and have a Screaming Eagle medic looking you in the eyes and telling you that you're going to be OK."
http://www.theleafchronicle.com/news/stories/20031210/localnews/8603-2740.jpg
Pfc. Jerimiah Siena and his teammates with the 21st Combat Support Hospital carry a sand-bagged litter through a trench at the combat medic challenge. The cold, waist-deep water didn't deter the soldiers from pushing on and completing the station.
If you guys didn't know, Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus was shot at close range in the chest by an M16. And another cool tidbit: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was the doctor who operated on Petraeus.
Gunshot incident bonds Senate leader, 101st leader
Friendship forged after life-threatening episode in 1991
WASHINGTON (AP) -- When Maj. Gen. David Petraeus first met Sen. Bill Frist they were in an operating room. One man was a patient felled by a M-16 gunshot wound to the chest; the other the surgeon who would save him.
The life-threatening episode in 1991 helped forge a friendship that today stretches across the globe, where Petraeus commands the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq and Frist leads the Senate as Republican majority leader. The two talked as recently as last Wednesday, the start of the Iraq war.
"In his mind, he introduces me as the surgeon who saved his life and shows his scar to demonstrate," Frist, R-Tennessee, said in an interview Thursday night.
Frist, a heart surgeon at the time at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, operated on Petraeus after he was shot in the chest with an M-16 round fired at close range by a careless soldier.
Recalling that afternoon in 1991, Frist said he got a call from the emergency room that a person with a gunshot wound to the left chest was coming in. When Petraeus arrived, Frist put in a chest tube and it was clear the patient was bleeding faster than blood could be replenished.
Frist explained to Petraeus on the way to the operating room that there was risk of infection from the bullet.
"Halfway through the explanation, he said, 'Doctor, let's go get this over with; you need to tell me nothing more,"' Frist recalled.
"He was tough, a real soldier. It fits with his overall image with jumping out of airplanes, breaking his pelvis," he said, referring to the commander's surviving the collapse of his parachute 60 feet up during a free fall jump a few years back.
Petraeus was out of bed within 12 hours of surgery -- half the time it takes for the average patient, something Frist attributes to his top physical condition.
Frist recalled Petraeus "apologizing for the guy who shot him."
The 1st Brigade of the 101st started arriving Thursday at an undisclosed location near Baghdad.
Its arrival comes just four days after a grenade attack on a 101st Airborne command center in Kuwait took the lives of two American officers and injured 14 others. An Army sergeant is accused in the attack. Petraeus was not at the scene.
Last week Frist called Petraeus to express his respect for his leadership and for the soldiers he's leading into battle.
"I said I'd look forward to calling him, and asked for the area code in Baghdad so I could call him in the near future in Baghdad," the senator said.
The two attended the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, at different times, and in October they ran the Army 10-miler together in Washington.
Although they started at the same time, Petraeus quickly disappeared in the crowd ahead of Frist, running about a 7-minute mile.
http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/28/sprj.irq.war.101.commander.ap/story.frist.101.jpg
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, left, and Chairman of the Armed Services Committee Sen. John Warner.
http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/28/sprj.irq.war.101.commander.ap/story.v.101.jpg
Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus, right, commander of the 101st Airborne Division, right, with Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, V Corps commander