EFMB Fail

The Army has enough “what in the heck?” moments on an ongoing basis that there’s a whole website dedicated to them, aptly named “Army WTF Moments“. There’s also an accompanying Facebook page and Twitter account. Let’s just say that between the things I’ve personally observed and the things I’ve gotten second-hand via those sites and the stories of friends, there’s very little that surprises me any more when it comes to soldiers doing dumb stuff. And then along comes a story like this one, reported by the Reuters -

Forty-three soldiers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina were evaluated for heat-related illness on Friday after taking part in a 12-mile march, a base spokeswoman said. Thirteen of the soldiers were admitted to Womack Army Medical Center, including one who was admitted to the intensive care unit, said Fort Bragg spokeswoman Jackie Thomas.

(…)

The injured soldiers were among 56 service members vying to earn an Expert Field Medical Badge, a competition that began September 18 and includes a grueling series of hands-on tests. The march represented the culmination of the competition. The temperature at the time of the test this morning was about 72 degrees Fahrenheit but officials said the soldiers were carrying heavy packs.

Let me first point out the obvious math – when 43 out of 56 soldiers have to be treated for heat-related injuries, that means just about 77% of soldiers became heat casualties. That’s an awfully big casualty statistic. There were probably instances in World War I where units took fewer casualties, percent-wise, walking into German machine gun fire. Of those 43 soldiers, 13 were admitted to the hospital – that’s 23%. Almost a quarter of all soldiers on this road march.

The thing that really, really bothers me about this are not the ridiculously high numbers of heat casualties, but the fact that these soldiers were setting out to complete earning their Expert Field Medical Badges. Testing for the EFMB is limited only to US Army medical personnel. Let me repeat this – medical personnel. MEDICAL. Let me spell it out … M E D I C A L. You know, those people who are trained to recognize and treat illness and injury in soldiers. Like, oh, say, heat exhaustion, for example. Or heat cramps. Or heat stroke.

I don’t think there is any excuse whatsoever for medics competing for their Expert Field Medical Badge to suffer this amount of casualties due to heat exhaustion, or heat stroke, or any other heat-related issue. They should probably recognize the symptoms as they come across them … if not in themselves, then in the guy next to them, and take appropriate action.

As far as I’m concerned, I think the entire class should fail and not be awarded their EFMBs. I don’t care how well they took on their tests. I don’t care how well they did at any other portions of the test. I do care that these medics fell out like flies. This indicates to me that they either don’t recognize the symptoms of heat-related illness in others, or don’t give a rat’s ass, or don’t have any common sense.

Look, I get it … the EFMB is tough to earn and everyone wants to earn it. Especially under the current climate where we’re facing cuts of thousands from the Army, either because it’s become more difficult to get promoted before hitting your retention control point, or because they’re plain looking for reasons to kick people out, whether it’s via quality review boards or chapters, so every accomplishment helps. But I wouldn’t want a medic next to me who’d let his fellow medics fall out left and right to earn a badge.