training

Sailors prepare for ground combat at Fort Jackson

Navy Sailors learn proper convoy procedures and battle injury aid to civilians during training at Fort Jackson's Camp McCrady, home to Task Force Marshall. Tim Dominick tdominick@thestate.com
Lt. Cmdr. Michelle Sanabia hunkered down in a firing pit at Fort Jackson’s Bastogne gun range and kicked her boots up on the tripod of an imposing 50-caliber machine gun – a stalwart of the U.S. military since World War II. Not many rounds hit their mark. But the slight, 53-year-old Navy emergency room nurse from Millington, Tenn., has had her first experience with an Army automatic weapon. The training – which occurred in September – might be useful now that she has deployed to a NATO forward base hospital in Kandahar, Afghanistan.