Photo By 1st Sgt. Jim Heuston | Spc. Water Ross, military police officer with the 216th Military Police Company, is...... read more read more
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CAMP ROBINSON, Arkansas - Soldiers with the 216th Military Police Company conducted taser training as a demonstration for visiting employers and their Guardsmen, June 24, 2025, at Camp Robinson.
Every year Guardsmen get to invite their civilian employers to annual training as a way to introduce their weekday coworkers to the Arkansas National Guard.
“I liked that everybody was there to watch, some people had their kids there and everything,” said Spc. Water Ross, the first of three Soldiers with the 216th MP Co. who volunteered to be tased as part of their training. “I know when I was a little girl, I would see all of these very powerful women, and I wanted to be someone that [the kids] could look up to and be like, ‘dad or mom, I want to do that when I grow up.’ I wanted to be strong, and I wanted to show them that it's not scary. You can do whatever you want.”
In order to be able to carry a taser, Guardsmen in the 216th MP Co. are required to complete a course of fire, and show competency, with the taser to qualify for carrying the nonlethal weapon, but being tased is voluntary.
“My entire body froze up as I hit the ground,” said Spc. Charles Hicks. “I was like, there ain't no way, it’s not been five seconds yet. It was painful.”
“To be able to experience how it feels,” said Spc. Alya Bishop when asked why she volunteered. “If you were to do it to an actual person, just to see how painful it felt.” The taser prongs hit Bishop close to her spine. “I'm going to tell you, it sucks.”
“You do feel like you’re part of a club,” said Ross, describing sharing the video of it afterwards and discussing the experience with other Soldiers. “And then they'll show you their video. It's a bonding experience, for sure. And, you get to laugh about it afterwards.”
Many Guardsmen in the 216th MP Co. have been tased, and it is encouraged, so that Soldiers have a full understanding of the capabilities of the weapon.
“Soldiers get genuinely excited whenever it comes to getting to train on something that they’ve never gotten to train on, or something that they don't get to train on very often,” said Sgt. Joseph Reichman, nonlethal weapons instructor, 216th MP Company.
Reichman explained that the MP Company trains on the tasers once a year during annual training, and that the regular training they conduct throughout the year can get repetitive. “But, whenever we pull out tasers, or something like that, you see them get a little bit more engaged. So, it's really nice to see them kind of straightened up in their chairs.”
Being shot by a taser is safe for healthy adults, explained Spc. Cameron Johnson, medic with 216th MP Co., “We do a good job prescreening every Soldier [for medical issues] before we do the training. My biggest concern with the tasing is; if the taser prongs hit somewhere like in sensitive tissue, the butt or the spine, that hurts a lot more.”
From Johnson's experience most Soldiers recover from the taser shock in about three to five seconds, but he added they keep an AED machine, an automated external defibrillator, on hand in case a person has an arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat, due to the taser shock.
“Depending on where you get tased,” said Johnson about full recovery. “It can take a few days because your body's going to be sore. [The taser] is interrupting natural electrical impulses that your brain is sending to your body, and you're sending a load in there. And so, those muscles are contracting and retracting, doing all kinds of funky stuff. Depending on what muscles are targeted; they can be sore.”
Johnson described removing the taser prongs as his main concern because if the prongs are not pulled straight out, carefully, they can tear tissue and cause a larger wound that takes longer to heal.
Johnson said he became a medic because he wanted to make sure Soldiers were being safe during training. “Tasing, it's fun just to see it happen, but, I like helping people. So my primary thing I like from it is just making sure they're all right.”
(Arkansas Army National Guard story by 1st Sgt. Jim Heuston)
| Date Taken: | 06.24.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 07.01.2025 11:13 |
| Story ID: | 501999 |
| Location: | NORTH LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS, US |
| Hometown: | DARDANELLE, ARKANSAS, US |
| Hometown: | LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS, US |
| Web Views: | 75 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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