Defence Team News Interview with MCpl Pope and Lt Stephens, on MAPLE RESOLVE 22

Video / June 1, 2022

Transcript

Shelley Van Hoof: Today, we’re joined by two participants of MAPLE RESOLVE 22, Master Corporal Pope, a CAF Medic, and Lieutenant Stephens, a Med-Surg Nurse for the United States Armed Forces.

Thank you for joining us!

To start off, could you explain the objective of Exercise MAPLE RESOLVE, and what your role as medics are in the exercise?

MCpl Pope: From my understanding, the objective of MAPLE RESOLVE is to validate the combat units in our brigade, and make sure that they’re ready for any action that may be required of them in the future. As medics, our job here is to provide real-life med support to those soldiers in the field when they get injured.

Shelley Van Hoof: What skills do our members build while on the Exercise?

MCpl Pope: Our members are medic members. The skills that they seem to build most in reacting to emergencies and learning to work with our multinational partners in a team.

Shelley Van Hoof: What are the benefits of conducting an exercise like MAPLE RESOLVE?

MCpl Pope: We get exposure to all these different platforms that we don’t normally get to work on when we’re back home at base. And we also get to see what our partners work with when they’re deployed, so that… should we come to work with them while on deployment, it’s not a complete mystery. It’s something we’ve ben familiar with and…

Lt Stephens: We may see each other again in the future.

MCpl Pope: That’s it.

Shelley Van Hoof: I understand there are a number of countries participating in MAPLE RESOLVE. Could you tell us about the different areas of expertise shared between allies during this exercise?

Lt Stephens: Yah, so it’s been great. So the Canadian Forces don’t really have some of the occupations that the American Forces have, so we’ve learned how to integrate what they don’t have, and what we do have. I’m actually personally learning new skills. I had some night shift medics teaching me how to suture last night. I got one good one, so we’re getting there. But it’s interesting to see how we can both interact and take some positives and some negatives, and kind of learn from that, and combine to have better policies and procedures in the future for both of our forces.

MCpl Pope: On our side, we’re finding that the Canadians tend to be trained on just about everything, so we can fill in the hole wherever it’s needed. Whereas the Americans tend to be highly specialized, which is great because that makes them experts in whatever it is they do. So it’s interesting to see the two approaches combined on a patient.

Shelley Van Hoof: Thank you both for taking the time to talk to us today.

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