During Combined Resolve XVI (CBR XVI), a United States Army Europe-Africa directed, 7th Army Training Command conducted, Joint Multinational Readiness Center hosted multinational training event involving 1st Infantry Division’s 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team (1/1ID), U.S. and Ukrainian soldiers compared emergency medical procedures to find efficient ways to quickly and safely treat one another’s patients at a moment’s notice. The role of the combat medic is to provide the first echelon of care and to correctly communicate the level of treatment needed as wounded personnel are evacuated to receive further treatment during both training and deployments.
“We’re working on how we’re going to be doing our patient transfers from the battlefield with our notional patients. The training was great. It was a big eye-opener to see the Ukrainian medics work, and it’s something new. We may have our different platforms, but we get to see how they operate. We get to incorporate each other’s strategies into our medical platforms,” said Spc. Guillermo Guzman, a combat medic specialist with 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment (1-16IN) “Iron Rangers,” 1/1ID.
“We have to have that trust between teams to make sure that they know our process and even with the language barrier, we are able to treat whatever casualty whether Ukrainian, Romanian, American, etc. We’re all able to do our job, get them treated and get them evacuated out to the next level of care. It’s important to have that familiarity with each other, with our vehicles, with our equipment, how they run things and how we run things.,” said Sgt. Jong Han, a combat medic specialist in 1-16IN, 1/1ID.
The teams were given the opportunity to practice relocating patients between the U.S. Army M113 armored personnel carrier and Ukraine’s BMM-4S armored medical vehicle, which often have different methods of securing patient litters for movement. Soldiers of both nations provided opportunities to ride in each other’s vehicles to further understand how patient care can differ between the two. During CBR XVI, getting these details worked out in garrison will help maximize their time together in the field and also build camaraderie between the two armies as they train together. Even before the major events of CBR XVI kicked off, medics of both nations were already one step ahead and ready to work together.
