SUFFOLK, Va. – This year, the Forward Deployable Preventative Medical Unit (FDPMU) participated in a first-ever Weapons and Threat Recognition Training Course, specifically designed and tailored for the unit’s unique mission.
FDPMUs are rapidly, deployable, and mobile units that support force health protection, identifying health hazards in various deployable locations around the globe, and working closely with unit commanders and decision-makers to ensure the health and safety of deployed service members to the greatest extent.
The weapons and threat recognition training is conducted to prepare the unit for deployments up to large-scale combat operations. “The former Director for Preventive Medicine, Cmdr. George Vancil, of NMCFHPC was the catalyst behind making all this happen,” said Herschel Haynes, an FDPMU operations planner. “He had a vision to introduce these types of hard skills into the training program to increase the unit’s survivability and ensure they all return safely from uncertain, chaotic, and potentially kinetic operations.”
“The FDPMU’s are proven force enablers,” said Vancil. “They have been since their first deployment in 2004 and continued to be in more than eight years at war during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. The training received through the course is largely built from that experience and will ensure the FDPMU is able to operate effectively in a distributed maritime operational environment as they perform their combat support role.”