Tech Sgt. Raymond Garcia, a medic, teaches a group of Kadena troops how to insert a tube into someone's airway, so the injured person can breathe. Garcia was among 26 instructors who taught self-aid/buddy care Tuesday during Kadena's base-wide ability-to-survive-and-operate training. (Megan McCloskey / S&S)
Tech Sgt. Raymond Garcia, a medic, teaches a group of Kadena troops how to insert a tube into someone's airway, so the injured person can breathe. Garcia was among 26 instructors who taught self-aid/buddy care Tuesday during Kadena's base-wide ability-to-survive-and-operate training. (Megan McCloskey / S&S)
Instructors teach troops the procedures for decontamination. Troops went to each station set up in long line, where instructors and large signs gave step-by-step instructions. (Megan McCloskey / S&S)
Kadena troops listen to instruction about identifying and reporting unexploded ordinances and how to properly seclude and mark an area. (Megan McCloskey / S&S)
KADENA AIR BASE, Okinawa — Kadena Air Base prepped this week for the upcoming Operational Readiness Inspection by having all troops go through a training course on nuclear, biological and chemical contamination procedures and self-aid and buddy care.
This is the first time Kadena has held basewide Ability to Survive and Operate training.
“There was a lot of variance around base,” said Capt. Daniel Kranenburg. “We’re trying to standardize how the whole base does it, so it’s the same from unit to unit.”
Kranenburg, who organized the training, said demonstrating ability to survive and operate is a key component of the inspection and is graded as its own category.
The once-every-three years inspection is scheduled for November, when Pacific Air Forces inspectors are to spend five days grading Kadena operations.
Getting all the Kadena troops — at least 1,200 a day — through the survive-and-operate sessions took four days.
At any given time at least 300 people baked in the sun in full bio-chemical gear in the 18th Medical Group’s parking lot, learning decontamination procedures. Across the way, in much cooler physical-training clothes, others learned how to identify and report unexploded ordnance.
Inside the shaded relief of a parking garage, 300 to 400 more learned about the new first-aid kit, how to transport wounded and otherwise “take care of their buddies out in the field,” said 18th Wing self-aid/buddy care advisor Tech. Sgt. Dena McGill.
The first-aid kit held materials most troops had not seen until the seminar, said instructor Staff Sgt. Chris Fahrenbruch, including a new tourniquet, an airway tube and a powder similar to silver nitrate that cauterizes a wound with a chemical reaction on the skin. The powder is used in the field when dealing with a severed limb.
Kadena spokesman Capt. Carlos Diaz said the training refreshes “skills that every war fighter should have.”
Kranenburg said the training is “a bit painful to cram into one day, but that’s a lot better than doing it piecemeal. I personally would like to see it be an annual event, given the high turnover we have.”
Information about the new self-aid/buddy care kit can be found at https://kx.afms.mil.
