how to order an expresso in Estonia
Jeez Paul, I never received training like that!
Here's a real event...now six years old. Is is COIN ? Yes and no. Replace the mother and child with another U.S. soldier in the same scenario !
We’d been at our favorite watering hole for about 3 hours when Mike was ready to go, as he had to be on post one at 0600 the following day. After some serious ribbing, we let him go (gotta love a serious Marine NCO).
I guess several minutes pasted when I got his frantic call. He was less than 200 meters up the street holding a conversation with the 112 emergency center (similar to our 911, but without any direct connection to law enforcement, which is 110).
Mike walked past one of many high-class clubs and mafia-run taxi stands when he saw a 500SL taxi speeding down the adjacent street towards a mother and child walking. Mike ran and grabbed the young boy into his arms, but the mother stood in the middle of the road in slight shock and was struck by the speeding Mercedes. The driver stopped briefly and then jumped into his cab and fled.
Mike had memorized the details, but now was faced with a young child screaming in Estonian asking Mike to help his mother. Mike immediately called 112 and asked for an ambulance as well as repeating the license number of the taxi. The woman that responded couldn’t understand Mike as he repeated the need for help and the number of the fleeing taxi, by responding that Mike needed to call 110 to report traffic accidents. Frustrated, he hung up and decided to tend to the bleeding/conscience woman in the middle of the road. She was now reeling in pain (a broken right leg and deep head wound), and asking in Estonian to call an ambulance. Mike put his jacket under the woman’s head and began looking at her leg.
I had just arrived and called emergency as well as requesting that 110 be notified. Mike rattled off all the details, as if he retained them to permanent memory.
It’s a bit of a long story for a scenario. Mike performed flawlessly, but without the benefit of some language background was stymied and later told me he felt nearly helpless. Years later, I’m happy to report that our MSGs begin their tours with 8 weeks of language training.
So, what’s a 1/1/1 FLPT include? Basically nothing. I’d prefer we center on real life situations and not some dog-and-pony show ‘Hi, my name is’ and then we immediately begin learning cuss words.