Photo By Scott Sturkol | Medics with Wisconsin National Guard’s 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry Regiment...... read more read more
Subscribe
Soldiers with the 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry Regiment, 32nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, completed training at Fort McCoy in early June and among the many Soldiers in the unit completing training were Army medics and related medical personnel.
Soldiers with the 127th were getting ready for deployment, and more, said Staff Sgt. Mitchell Fromm, a 127th medic who helped lead the training.
“So as a platoon of medics, we cover an infantry battalion,” Fromm said about what his medic platoon will do while deployed. “We’ve got about 45 medics in total. Of that we disperse them among five different companies, and we run a (field) hospital.”
Fromm added that his team has ambulances and more that they operate to support the fight.
“We support the infantry, so when they’re out fighting, we’re as close to the line as possible, and we run our field medical tent,” Fromm said. Then when there’s casualties, we'll bring them in.”
In their training at Fort McCoy, Fromm described what the importance is for his team is to come to McCoy, to train together, and get that camaraderie and that knowledge of each other built up right before they deploy.
“Largely it’s trust,” Fromm said. “I have a very large platoon … broken up across five to six different companies, and it is decentralized leadership. So, I don't have eyes on or the chance to meet with every single medic every day. I must trust that I have leaders at every level. … We need to build that training and that trust that they can … not only to treat those Soldiers and get them home but also that they make the right decisions. That they can live with that decision after they come home or potentially leave the Army. It’s up to us to ensure that we take care of Soldiers for the rest of their career and then they can pass those lessons along. So, the more that we do here, even though it’s some longer days and some higher training, it helps in the long run.”
Maj. (Dr.) Christopher Zeman, surgeon for the 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry Regiment, also discussed the medical training preparation the unit was doing at Fort McCoy.
“Really the point of being here at Fort McCoy is trying to get down our processes that we need to do in order to take care of Soldiers and those who are wounded,” Zeman said. “I can honestly say that the NCOs (noncommissioned officers) and the Soldiers in this unit are some of the most motivated who I’ve ever served with. They really take it upon themselves to drive their own training to get better and to improve every drill.
“When I came to them (a year ago), they already had a level of proficiency that was really quite impressive,” Zeman said. “These Soldiers, these NCOs, are taking it upon themselves to get better in their off time. It’s not only during drill and not only during annual training, but to also find those experiences for training when they’re out in the civilian world too. It shows when we get together and train, and it shows that … they have a a level of proficiency that is, I would say, a cut above.”
Zeman also mentioned the importance of the medic team further building trust in one another during their training.
“I think (one) of the biggest things that we look at and focus on is trusting one another,” Zeman said. “To be able to work together as a team and knowing that you can trust the person on your left and your right is critical. None of us … function alone, and we function the best as an entire medic platoon with all of those moving pieces to support a large battalion element. So, trust I would say is the biggest piece of that.”
On looking forward to the deployment, Zeman said he is looking forward to getting to know his team even more.
“I’m really looking forward to getting to know them better in an environment that maybe isn’t as predictable as what we have in training,” Zeman said. “Seeing how we react to that and then just having some additional training opportunities while we’re deployed. While we’re here, we have only a limited amount of time and space to train and improve, and when we’re over there it’s really going to be the primary focus. So, we really get an opportunity to kind of advance those skills and not really have other distractions that might stop our training.”
Lt. Col. Kevin R. Whitney, brigade surgeon for the Wisconsin National Guard’s 32nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, supported training medics as well. He gave a broader overview of what all the training was about.
“So, this annual training, our highest priority is to get the 127th Infantry Battalion ready to deploy,” Whitney said. “They’ve already basically left their home stations and are currently doing two weeks of train up before they head to Fort Bliss (Texas) and then continue their training before they head to their assignments overseas.
“They’re going to be gone about a year, so the train up is pretty significant because they’re an infantry battalion. There’s a lot of training, a lot of ranges that need to be done, a lot of high-level training that has potential for injuries and so our medics that are here are supporting that training and also, they’re training themselves because they're getting ready to deploy with the battalion.”
Whitney described why it is important for leaders like himself to also be fully immersed in preparing the Soldiers for deployment as well.
“We train, and that’s been a big priority as a brigade surgeon,” Whitney said. We want to train here so the Soldiers can see us training. If we train back in the classroom and go through some medical stuff, the Soldiers aren’t going to see that. We want to go bring our training out to the lines where they’re in the fields and on ranges so they can see that their medics are doing their job. … I know our command leadership really appreciates seeing the Soldiers and the medics integrated and seeing the training as far forward as possible. That’s been our highest priority not only in this battalion but the brigade — to train where the Soldiers are.”
So, for the medics whom Whitney conducted a lot of training with, he said they’ll have critical roles when they’re deployed, and they want all of them to be ready.
“They will have medics as far forward as where the battle lines are occurring and where the infantry Soldiers are in the fight,” Whitney said, reflecting Fromm’s comments. “Those medics’ job is to try to keep those Soldiers healthy so they can go into the fight with preventative medicine and then of course if they suffer injuries, whether that’s from the environment or the battle, their job is to stabilize those Soldiers. And if need be, push them back to the battalion aid station or what we call our role one where you’ll have a battalion surgeon and medics.
“So, the training that they’re doing here is covering all of those environments which could be anywhere in a training environment of 5 to 6 kilometers or in a real war situation at a 20- to 40-kilometer range that they might have to provide medical care over that large of a space,” Whitney said.
Wisconsin National Guard Soldiers regularly train at Fort McCoy. For this deployment, the 32nd Soldiers completed a wide variety of training at the post also in 2024 and 2023
Learn more about the Wisconsin National Guard by visiting https://wi.ng.mil.
ort McCoy’s motto is to be the “Total Force Training Center.”
Located in the heart of the upper Midwest, Fort McCoy is the only U.S. Army installation in Wisconsin.
The installation has provided support and facilities for the field and classroom training of more than 100,000 military personnel from all services nearly every year since 1984.
Learn more about Fort McCoy online at https://home.army.mil/mccoy, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” on Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/fortmccoywi, and on X (formerly Twitter) by searching “usagmccoy.”
Also try downloading the My Army Post app to your smartphone and set “Fort McCoy” or another installation as your preferred base. Fort McCoy is also part of Army’s Installation Management Command where “We Are The Army’s Home.”
| Date Taken: | 06.23.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 06.23.2025 12:44 |
| Story ID: | 501235 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 38 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Medics with Wisconsin National Guard’s 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry Regiment hold training at Fort McCoy; unit preps for deployment, by Scott Sturkol, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
