Grooming combat controllers extends beyond the waterlogged bodies at the pool. It’s about taking a group of men and forming a disciplined team. Throughout their careers, with less than 500 officers and enlisted men assigned to the specialty, it’s likely they’ll work together at some point. So teamwork must be second nature.
“Buddy breathing” teaches team members to rely on each other in life-threatening situations. Thrashing instructors simulate the hazards of combat by trying to disorient, distract and even wrangle masks or the snorkel from a “buddy” team. During the simulation, the students focus on sharing the breathing tube without losing composure or breaking the surface to take a breath.
There is a gradual progression in the physical training, but when it comes to the water, it’s sink or swim. Although it looks severe, instructors don’t expect students to do anything they haven’t done themselves. The learning curve is steep, but instructors get in the water and demonstrate. By the time students finish, they will have completed a 3,000-meter or 60-lap fin swim in 75 minutes.
For the instructors, the reward comes when they see a group transition into a team.
“We all have the same goals, and that makes it easy to help each other,” Derek said. “Everyone is intent on getting everyone through this course.”
Another activity sends students sinking to the bottom of the pool, hands and feet tied together, performing somersaults in the water and retrieving a dive mask from the bottom of the aquatic abyss. The series of threatening exercises is called “drownproofing” and is designed to build confidence in the water.
But there’s more to this phase than diving into the 12-foot pool. Trainees also learn about decompression, dive tables and physics.
“They’re constantly under stress, and we see how well they perform,” said Tech. Sgt. Greg, noncommissioned officer in charge of prescuba. “In the end, we have good results.”
The number of Air Force honor graduates at the next step — Combat Diver Qualification Course in Key West, Fla. — has risen dramatically with airmen named eight of the last 14 honor grads. And in a joint school where the washout rate for airmen was once 10 percent, no one has failed since before 1996.
Greg recalled one airman, in the second class, had an especially difficult time and “washed back” but eventually went home as an honor graduate in his class of 60 at the Key West course.
“When you see a guy struggle through the program and later you see him proudly wearing a ‘scuba bubble’ on his chest, that’s when being an instructor is most rewarding,” he said.
Article Courtesy of Airman's Magazine
