Dive Team prepares Soldiers through crisis scenarios

Photo By Sgt. Spencer Rhodes | Staff Sgt. Christopher Kratsas, a 1st Class Diver with the 511th Engineer DIve Team at the Kuwait Naval Base, Kuwait, gives a pre-dive brief with everyone who was participating in the dive that night. As part of that nights training, every Diver who acted as Dive Supervisor was graded on how thorough his performance was, including the beginning brief, covering all needed bases, from safety to assigned duties.  

KUWAIT NAVAL BASE, KUWAIT

08.31.2010

Story by Spc. Spencer Rhodes 

53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team

KUWAIT NAVAL BASE, Kuwait — For the 511th Engineer Dive Team, deploying has provided a surplus of training opportunities that, due to the daily activities of active duty life, would otherwise be unavailable to them in the states. Opportunities the dive team gladly welcomes.

For two weeks the 511th is doing hands on crisis scenarios, allowing Soldiers to practice their role as a Diving Supervisor for a simulated project dive. Whenever divers go to school, and there are numerous ones throughout their career, they are tested on their ability to actively handle a bad situation. This is especially true for 1st Class Diver school; the best way for Soldiers to prepare for future tests is hands on training.

Since it is a team effort, junior Divers are monitoring and helping the Soldiers actually diving in the water. The Soldiers diving are given a task to complete underwater, mainly for practice, since Diving Supervisor, generally a 1st Class Diver, is the only one being graded on his performance.

“Really, the main focus is to get the 1st Class Divers qualified on handling these specific situations, but its training that everyone gets something out of,” said Capt. Edouard De Courreges, company commander for the 511th.

The amount of live training divers get back in the states can sometimes be limited. However, with deployment opportunities, Soldiers are able to fit an exponential amount of training.

“Back in the states, we might get in depth training once a year. So just in three weeks here, we’re getting years worth of training,” said Lt. Daniel Weller, executive officer for the 511th.

Weller also explained that although they were going to put as many Soldiers through the Supervisor seat, especially those were preparing to go to 1st Class Diver School upon their return; the main focus was on those Senior Divers who needed to be command qualified. Command qualification is where the senior divers, who are already rated as 1st Class Diver, are graded by their unit, determining whether they can still perform as needed, based on schoolhouse training. There is a checklist of scenarios that will be checked off for them, over the following weeks.

Aside from the acting out of a crisis situation, it is an otherwise normal dive day. Everyone rotates through different stations that either monitor the life support for the diver, or help don the divers gear. The varied training allows everyone to improve their skill regardless of their role.

The divers, for example, are tasked with making a grill underwater, by welding pieces of scrap metal together.

“Welding is definitely something we have trouble keeping Soldiers proficient in, so it lets us get them some practice, while the Dive Supervisor monitors his own scenario,” said De Courreges.

Staff Sgt. Christopher Kratsas, one of the 1st Class Divers in the unit, says that it can be easy to get away from Diving, and the intricacies that are involved with supervising, when you’re in a garrison environment. Keeping proficient in real life situations can save the life of a diver, a life that a Diving Supervisor, who is running the whole operation, is responsible for.

“Supervising and Diving are perishable skills, to stay proficient in it, you have to practice it,” said Kratsas.

The last two weeks of August consist of these training dives, all of which simulate diving beyond sixty feet. Though their means of diving only allows them to go to an actual depth much more shallow than the scenario implies. In future months, they will go farther out beyond the port, and actually perform some of the same scenarios, in a much deeper depth.

• Date Taken: 08.31.2010
• Date Posted: 09.07.2010 07:14
• Story ID: 55822
• Location: KUWAIT NAVAL BASE, KW