Day 58: Final Exam

Over the past few months we have been transformed from doctors, pharmacists, nurses, and hospital administrators to something that is supposed to resemble a US Army soldier. Today, we went out in the incredibly hot and humid Kansas sun, to be tested on some of our skills. Below are the results.

FOB Jawad.
This is the tent city where we did our testing today. To arrive here we drove in convoy. Along the route, our convoy was attacked by several "insurgents" with AK-47's. During our training convoys, we are often "attacked" by both insurgents with weapons and simulated IED's (improvised explosive devices) to help prepare us for potential threats once we arrive in Afghanistan.

IED station. We have been trained in recognizing, avoiding, and potentially defeating improvised explosive devices. These have become more popular methods of attack in Afghanistan so it is important we can fight them.
Blue Force Tracker. This is like having google earth in your Humvee. It is connected to a GPS unit and shows you your location, your enemies location, sends reports, etc.
M2 review. This is one of our large machine guns. We were tested on its operation, assembly, disassembly, etc.
I was tasked with the radio station. We load encryption keys into a radio and then make secure transmissions that are harder for the enemy to listen in on.
Combat Life Saver--basic emergency life saving skills. Here one of our hospital administrators is checking a patient for an open chest wound.
Waiting in the heat!
The HIDE machine. This is a device used to keep track of potential and known insurgents. As you can see above, it is designed to take iris scans, fingerprints, mugshots, etc. Once a person is "enrolled" it is electronically transferred to a central US database.
The drive home. 100 degree weather, full battle rattle, windows up and no AC.