More injuries to service members
Stars & Stripes reports that which we already know – training for war is dangerous work;
One soldier died and 23 servicemembers were injured in three days during training exercises at Fort Hood, Fort Bragg and Camp Pendleton, defense officials said.
One day after 15 Marines were injured in a sudden fire during training at Camp Pendleton in California, an explosion during training Thursday morning at Fort Bragg in North Carolina injured eight soldiers, officials said. The incidents followed the death Tuesday of Army Staff Sgt. Sean Devoy, who was killed after falling during helicopter training at Fort Hood in Texas, according to the Army.
Devoy, a medic with the 2nd General Support Aviation Battalion, 1st Aviation Regiment, 1st Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley in Kansas, had three deployments to Afghanistan in his seven years of service, before his untimely demise on Tuesday.
Category: We Remember
Rest well, SSG.
Thank you for your service.
This is not good. No one should be injured or die during training.
Is it realisticly possible to conduct effective training for war, a risky and dangerous activity, without risk and danger in training?
If we train leaders that it is never acceptible to incur casualties, what will be the leadership style in actual conflict?
How does one conduct reasonably realistic and effective squad level live fire tactical training, without risk of casualties?
One cannot.
The risk should be proportional and purposeful. But we -must- risk, or we will have nothing that can -fight-.
There are training injuries, yes, but this appears to be more than just training injuries.
Tell me why someone should die because he fell out of a helicopter? What went wrong there?
How many sailors die each year simply operating a ship at sea?
Zero risk means the helicopters never fly. No one ever rappels out of them.
Part of what we are supposed to be teaching is “managing risk”. Another part is “overcoming fear”. Neither can be accomplished from a position of total safety. Thus, sooner or later, someone winds up dead.
The news disclosure of fell during hoist training” is extremely vague. Included in this scenario is hoist cable failure, hoist failure, and slipping and falling as transitioning from floor/seat to lowering device.
Host near misses happen more than you might guess. During my 23 years of service I had on the hoist approaching the door of an H-3 in a 100 foot hoover go into free wheel as I was approaching the door. Although drag of the cable spooling off the drum slowed the fall I still hit the ground sufficiently to get a few compression fractures. Another incident involved the hoist falling from the helicopter because of corrosion failure. Fortunately it was a water hoist. Another involved cable failure while doing a water hoist.
Salute!
Well, of course something went wrong. Someone failed to inspect the hoist or the cable, the harness was bad, someone did something stupid, or maybe SGT Devoy hooked himself up wrong. There will be an investigation, the safety guys will figure it out, and there will be a new Safety of Use message. Such is life.
At JM school they taught us that the sky, more so than the see, is unforgiving of mistakes or hubris.
Also in JM school, a classmate died when he did something unsafe. The results were gruesome. Mental Health told us that we were normal for feeling scared and it was OK if we wanted to quit.
The chaplain told us that sadly the man made a fatal mistake, and that if we couldn’t deal with that we had no business in this profession- because it is quite literally our job as JMs to make sure that mistakes like that don’t happen.
Then again, whenever you are defying physics with a helicopter, 29 ton floating hunk of metal, or parachute or trying to harness destruction for good with explosives, It is a question of when, not if, something will gomwrong
Should be sea, not see
Rest in peace SSG. God be with you family.
Rest in Peace, SSG.
Fair winds and following seas, Staff Sergeant Devoy.
Actually, it’s four dead at Bragg, all SF Soldiers. Home Made Explosives training class.
Thoughts and prayers to the families.
Damn Damn Damn….Rest In Peace to all the Valiant Fallen.