Sailors attached to Fleet Hospital Bremerton are scheduled to attend “Just in Time Training” at the Fleet Hospital Operations and Training Center in Camp Pendleton, Calif. Feb. 6-10.

The training will teach the Sailors to drive convoys, operate a field radios, fire a 9mm handgun and many more combat survival r elated skills.

Sailors will receive this training as a step in Navy fleet hospitals revolutionizing toward a much leaner, more mobile entity to meet the growing needs of modern warfare.

The 160 Sailors attending this training will become the plank owners of the task organized Expeditionary Medical Facilities (EMF), meaning that a more forward deployed team will be constructed based on the needs for that specific mission.

The hospital is doing this training at Camp Pendleton to prepare its Sailors for tier one status, so that if called upon they will be ready to be a part of an EMF team.

“If the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery gets a requirement to task organize a medical facility, we would likely be that one. We are in the tier one deployable ready status,” said Capt. Mark Boman, commanding officer of Fleet Hospital Bremerton.

The last time Fleet Hospital Bremerton was deployed it was to Rota Spain from February to July 2003.

Some of the Sailors from that deployment are still stationed at Naval Hospital Bremerton. They worked with the staff at Fleet Hospital Operations Training Center to put together this combat field training for the EMF training package.

The goal of the training is to introduce the Sailors to an environment they’re not used to, but what they’ll likely be working in, in the future. It will be a cultural change and a different mindset.

“Both, myself and my Capt. Roberts have been advising our staff to be prepared for changes in the not to distant future. They won’t feel the changes until they get in the field with the Marines and placed in the arduous conditions at Pendleton,” said Boman.

Medical staff of the Bremerton’s fleet hospital will also be receiving ongoing clinical training in Bremerton before and after their training in California.

“I believe if we get a deployment order this team will be ready to go, both from a field perspective and certainly from a medical perspective,” said Boman.

In addition to the clinical and field training Fleet Hospital Bremerton is sending two teams of 12 Sailors each to a Navy trauma training center in Los Angeles. These teams will receive trauma training to treat bullet wounds, limb injuries and other physically traumatic injuries.