PARWAN, Afghanistan, - Comprehensive Soldier Fitness is playing a vital role in Operation Enduring Freedom thanks to the efforts of Staff Sgt. Michael Zanin of the Michigan National Guard's 46th Military Police Command, Task Force PeaceKeeper, here at Camp Sabalu-Harrison.
Zanin is the only trained Master Resilience instructor on Camp Sabalu-Harrison, which has about 3,000 Soldiers, sailors, airman and Marines, but he is trying to give these service members the training needed to overcome the challenges of being deployed.
This program teaches how to maintain Comprehensive Soldier Fitness, for years the Army focused mainly on physical fitness.
What the Army has found is that it needs to focus on all five aspects of Comprehensive Soldier Fitness: social, spiritual, emotional, family, and physical fitness, Zanin said.
This training is still in its infancy stages and the first classes to train Master resilience trainers were held in late 2009. The Soldiers should get the training before they leave on a deployment and they will get follow-up training during and after the deployment. This will help the Soldiers reinforce the resilience skills to aid them with situations that they may encounter in their everyday life.
“As far as I know this is the first training of its kind being offered in a theatre of operations,” said Zanin. “The program that is being rolled out is going to be mandatory training for all Army personnel.”
“The reason why we wanted to start the program now is because being, spiritually, emotionally, and fit with your family is important for service members,” said Zanin. “All the service members go through trials and tribulations during a deployment, so why not give them the skills now to help them work through those issues.”
This training covers different aspects of how a problem occurs all the way to solving the problem with the best possible outcome. It helps the soldiers understand how they think; it helps them understand how the process of thinking goes and how it affects them, the emotions and the reactions.
The training allows the soldiers to find what parts to the problem they can affect. They can then dig down to the root of the problem and what parts are out of their control. We teach the Soldiers to put the problem in perspective, which is a skill that deployed Soldiers can use when they get a negative thought.
“This happens a lot during deployment, a Soldier may get a negative thought then they dwell on those thoughts,” said Zanin. “The skill of putting it into perspective gives the soldiers simple tools that they can use in order figure out what realistically is happening.”
This training helps the soldiers become mentally tough and agile, so they can focus on what is true and not what their mind may be leading them to think.
“A Soldier may look tough on the outside, but if you out enough pressure on them sooner or later they might break,” said Zanin. “This training allows them to bounce back from that pressure and drive on in the face of adversity instead of breaking.”
“Once a Soldier understands how situations cause them to think and react, they then can gain better self control of those emotions and reactions,” Said Zanin.
The course also teaches the soldiers how to detect and understand their core values and how certain situations can trigger extreme emotions. It teaches energy management skills, how to recharge rapidly, how to calm down and focus in stressful situations, and problem solving skills.
“Some of the coping strategies that this course teaches you, this allows you to have to a clearer thought process and back to the task at hand,” said Staff Sgt. Adam Thompson of the 414th MP Company. “It teaches you great ways to deal with being deployed and stress in a family, it helps in dealing with conflict in a more effective manner.”
The new Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program gives the soldiers a more educated view on people’s behaviors and coping strategies for those behaviors.
Before Comprehensive Soldiers Fitness, soldiers had to find a way to deal with stress, and now soldiers are taught how to deal with stress without having to be put in a stressful situation.
“When something goes wrong it’s nice to be able to apply the things you were taught in order to deal with the issue effectively, said Spc. Andrew Venier of the 414th MP Company.
“I have had a lot of the soldiers in this course since we have begun this program come to me later and told me how much it has helped them,” said Zanin. “We have also had several people who have made appointments with the chaplains to help them work through some of the issue they are facing.”
“Part of the Master Resilience training is about teaching soldiers that asking for help is not a sign of weakness,” said Zanin. “Seeking help is a sign of strength and they are identifying that they have a problem and that it is more than they can handle on their own is just one indicator that this training is effective.”
“I can’t say that this will be 100 percent effective for 100 percent of the Soldiers, but it's getting through to some of them and that’s enough for me,” said Zanin.