CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (Feb. 24, 2009) -- -- Marines and other servicemembers have the opportunity to go to the personal security detachment course given at 1st Marine Division Schools aboard Camp Pendleton during pre-deployment training.
“The sooner that units come through the course the more that it helps with their cohesion for the upcoming deployment,” said Sgt. Codie A. Lofquist, a 23-year-old PSD instructor from Muskegon, Mich.
The PSD course is ten training days of individual and group training that gives servicemembers, who are part of the personal security detachment of their unit, techniques and procedures for providing security during combat operations.
During the training servicemembers go through a number of different scenarios designed to show them the best ways to protect themselves and the person they have been assigned to as a security detachment.
The training builds on prior infantry skills students developed during boot camp and Marine Combat Training or the Infantry Training Battalion.
Knowledge from the course can be used in any combat situation even though the course is normally used to give commanders the ability to have a trained security detachment.
To complete the course students must show a working knowledge of the skills taught. Testing that knowledge is done mainly through practical application scenarios as the students are only given a single test.
The course was started at Division Schools in Oct. of 2007 and has changed every time a unit goes through it. At the end of the course the students are given a course critique.
These tools are used by the instructors to make any necessary changes to the course.
Giving the students a good time and good training is the best way to encourage units to send more people to the course, Lofquist said.