Forward Deployable Preventive Medicine Units Conduct Battle Skills Training
Navy NewsStand
Story Number: NNS060607-03
6/7/2006
By Lithographer 3rd Class Emily Zamora, Fleet Public Affairs Center Atlantic
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (NNS) -- Sailors from Forward Deployable Preventive Medicine Units (FDPMU) out of Norfolk, Va., San Diego, and Jacksonville, Fla., gathered at Ft. Eustis here May 30-June 7 for battle skills training.
The training is conducted annually to prepare Navy hospital corpsmen who may deploy with Marines to war zones, such as Iraq and Kuwait, to fight during combat operations.
This year’s training, organized by the Naval Environmental Health Center, was the second held at the Ft. Eustis Army Base.
“With what’s going on in Iraq and Kuwait,” said Hospital Corpsman 1st Class (SW/FMF) Boone Bautro, logistics assistant for Naval Environmental Health Center, “we want to make it more realistic each time and make sure we stay up-to-date.”
Naval Preventive Medicine Unit (NPMU) 2 from Norfolk, and NPMU 5 from San Diego, as well as Navy Disease Vector Ecology Control Center (DVECC) from Jacksonville, participated in the battle skills training.
Sailors from these units were trained in mounting and dismounting convoy vehicles, range-shooting M-16s, and also participated in a live-fire exercise to familiarize them with the weapon and better prepare them for deployments to war zones.
“It’s excellent,” said Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Reatha Candler of NPMU 5. “I like shooting an M-16 and simulators.”
Sailors such as Candler said the most valuable skill they took from the training was how to “save a life and prevent yourself and your Marine from being killed.”
Les Green, training program manager for Naval Environmental Health Center, planned the events for the training exercise with an emphasis on safety.
“Communication,” said Green, “is a major part of making everything run smoothly and safely.”
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