FORT STEWART, Ga. – Soldiers, family members and Department of the Army civilians associated with the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, honed their resiliency skills, Sept. 10-14, during a weeklong course hosted by the master resiliency team with Army Community Service on Fort Stewart, Ga.
The training marked the first time in the Marne Division in which stakeholders in a single brigade came together to learn how to bounce back from adversity as a team.
“We’re really one community—the civilians are here for the soldiers and family members, [the] family members are here for the soldiers and the soldiers are here for all of us,” said Becky Sellars, the master resiliency training team lead with ACS. “As we learn to better take care of ourselves we are then able to better able to take care of the entire community.”
Sellars said participants in the course learned how to be stronger individuals and members of a team through working to develop each of the six resiliency competencies—self-awareness, self-regulation, optimism, mental agility, character strengths and connection—which collectively form the backbone of resiliency.
The team lead said the need for resiliency training of this caliber remains great as the “Vanguard” brigade continues to operate at a fast pace. She said military-related stressors add onto the normal daily stressors everyone experiences, making challenges for military families and civilians greater.
“If we can learn to bounce back from those daily challenges, those daily stressors, then when the bigger ones come along—which they will—we’re more able to get through those … and come out even better and stronger on the other side,” Sellars said.