REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES - U.S. Navy and Philippine Marine Corps corpsmen conducted bilateral training classes and practical application Oct. 12 as part of the bilateral Amphibious Landing Exercise (PHIBLEX) 2013.

PHIBLEX is a bilateral training exercise hosted annually in the Republic of the Philippines to enhance interoperability and readiness of Armed Forces of the Philippines and U.S. Forces. The training is designed to prepare both countries’ military forces for humanitarian service missions as well as strengthen bilateral ties.

Corpsmen from both sides gained new techniques from each other over the course of the training.

“Many of us have experienced our job first hand on the battlefield,” said Philippine Marine Cpl. Leslie Tarroza, a corpsman with the 12th Maine Battalion. “We like sharing our experiences as well as learning new tactics from the U.S. corpsmen.”

The exercise began with classes on controlling bleeding as well as resuscitating unresponsive patients.

“We are conducting bilateral classes with the battalion landing chief and the Philippine Marines, said U.S. Navy Chief Paul Sexton, an independent duty corpsman and the leading chief for the All Service Support Platoon with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit. “We are trading medical techniques including hemorrhage control and the basics of cardiopulmonary resuscitation”

Upon the completion of the classes, the corpsmen went on to practice carrying techniques. Both the U.S. and Filipino Marines demonstrated different ways of extracting a casualty. The scenarios included buddy drags and carries from the U.S. corpsman and an improvised stretcher composed from palm tree leaves demonstrated by the Filipino corpsmen.

“This training is going extremely well,” said Lt. Zachary M. Smith, the medical planner with the 31st MEU. “We are expanding on our skills as well as refining what we already know.”

Training exercises like this are critical to maintaining our readiness and improving our forces ability to integrate should there be a humanitarian assistance or disaster relief scenario. PHIBLEX allows our forces to train together and learn about each other’s capabilities and limitations now, so that we are better prepared to respond in the future.