In recent days, at the JFK Special Warfare Center and School in Fort Bragg Fayetteville, the headquarters of the special forces of the American Army, the ceremony for the delivery of the Special Operations Combat Medic (SOCM) qualification certificates in favor of International Special Forces operators.
In this training course the 1st corporal major Arturo Rio, ranger of the 4th "Alpipar" regiment successfully completed the selection, the course and all the intermediate exams, which led him to achieve the qualification of Special Operation Combat Medic, and to be the 1st classified out of 87 students, thus obtaining further recognition from the American Army: the "Army Commendation Medal".
The SOCM course, lasting 36 weeks, focuses on the training of special forces operators, with the aim of increasing their operational capabilities and making Special Operations Combat Medic acquire specialist skills in different macro-areas: Combat trauma management ( CTM), Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) everything related to the skills on the management of the wounded in combat.
The completion of the SOCM course certifies students as National EMT (Emergency Medical Technician), they are also qualified for BLS (Basic Life Support), Pediatric Education for Pre-hospital Providers and as Advanced Cardiac Life Support.
It is not the first time that an operator of the Special Forces of the Italian Army qualifies as the absolute first in a similar international course, in fact for 3 consecutive years an Italian soldier has been the best operator of the NATO Special Operation Combat Medic (NSOCM) courses at ISTC in Pfullendorf (Germany).
The NSOCM course, shorter than SOCM, with a total duration of 24 weeks (two of which to be held in a hospital environment at the University hospital of Cork - IRL), is the flagship of the training-training offer within the so-called NATO Global Programming developed by Allied Command Transformation (ACT). The NSOCM course qualifies Special Forces personnel who are able to guarantee adequate health support in modern employment scenarios where it is necessary to operate in situations of great isolation.
Italy is among the major NATO contributors of the NSOCM project, having understood its operational value from the development phase, and in this context the Army Special Forces Command (COMFOSE) is committed to identifying and selecting the best operators of the dependent departments more prone to the so-called "combat medicine", to be practiced in those remote areas where there is no coverage with medical personnel of the normal military health system, as happened in the recent past, when an Raider of the 9th regiment "Col Moschin" he saved over 120 lives while working abroad.
