Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Gaelen Lowers | Spc. Andrea Fillingane, an aid station specialist with the 3rd Sustainment Brigade,...... read more read more
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JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq— Making sure all 5,200 soldiers in the 3rd Sustainment Brigade, 103rd Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), are combat lifesaver qualified is a daunting task, but Spc. Joshua Fillingane and his wife, Spc. Andrea Fillingane, a deployed married couple, make it look easy.
“They work well together,” said Staff Sgt. Michael Tindal, an emergency care non-commissioned officer with the 3rd Sust. Bde., and a Manning, S.C., native. “You can see their teamwork during the class. They take things from their relationship at home and bring them to work.”
Joshua, the primary CLS instructor with the 3rd Sust. Bde., and a Fairmont, Minn., native, met Andrea, an aid station specialist with the 3rd Sust. Bde., and an Austin, Texas, native, while attending Advanced Individual Training back in 2007.
“In AIT, we didn’t really hang out a lot,” Andrea said. “He flirted with me and asked me out, but I told him no. But once we went home to our reserve units, I found out that I actually missed him.”
Joshua said he and Andrea started dating over the phone.
“She decided to visit for four days and never left,” said Joshua. “We were married a couple months after that.”
A few months after their marriage, they both went into active duty. They said being married has helped them both at home and on the job.
“I know what he’s best at, and he knows what I am best at,” said Andrea. “A lot of the time we don’t even have to discuss it, because we already know who’s going to do what. We work together a lot so we know each other better. It makes things easier for us.”
Their NCOs think the situation is beneficial to the brigade by having them work together on such an important aspect of training.
“Since before I ever arrived at the unit, they have worked together on CLS and other projects, and it has just worked for the unit,” said Staff Sgt. Tricia Watkins, a medical platoon sergeant with the 3rd Sust. Bde., and a Sacramento, Calif., native. “They work well together. They know the material. They work different facets of the class and balance each other out.”
This is their first deployment. They said that they wouldn’t have wanted to deploy without each other.
“It makes (deployment) easier,” said Andrea. “You have someone to lean on and help you cope with everything you face.”
Around 90 percent of combat deaths occur on the battlefield before casualties reach a medical treatment facility, according to the Army combat lifesavers course manual. This is why the Army requires every soldier heading into a combat zone to receive CLS training.
Operation Iraqi Freedom will transition into Operation New Dawn on Sept. 1., and the number of troops in Iraq will be approximately 50,000. This means that the 3rd Sust. Bde. will provide the primary CLS instructors for Northern and Central Iraq, said Tindal. This effectively makes the Fillinganes in charge of training nearly 20 percent of U.S. forces in Iraq.
“It makes me feel good that my NCOs trust us to do what we need to do to get the job done,” Joshua said. “It’s a big responsibility.”
Both of the Fillinganes said part of the reason they love their job is because they are together.
“I love working with her,” said Joshua. “It makes the job a lot easier, having someone there. When things go bad, I know I have someone there that I can rely on heavily to make things go right.”
| Date Taken: | 08.17.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 08.17.2010 03:19 |
| Story ID: | 54693 |
| Location: | IQ |
| Web Views: | 83 |
| Downloads: | 4 |
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