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Sgt. Yann Gauthier, who did three combat tours as a medic in Afghanistan, was amazed at how quickly some of his students applied the lessons he taught.

“Within a week after graduation, they can go directly to war,” he said.

About 70 per cent of the Canadian trainers — including three of the five medics teaching combat first aid and more specialized course — served in Afghanistan.

That experience “helps me a lot here,” Gauthier said. “It gives me credibility with the Ukrainians. Whether it is on the battlefield in Afghanistan or Ukraine, the body needs the same thing if it is bleeding to death. The techniques are almost the same so we can apply what we learned in Afghanistan.”

Instructor/soldier Arthur Woichenko describes the course offered by the Canadians as “priceless.”

“You can tell when a person already has some experience on the battlefield and has experienced that with his own blood. Looking him in the ey,e you feel it and understand why such methodologies and so important,” he said.

“I have participated in other courses before and we only got basic knowledge. Here, we get practical tasks. I have crossed out what I knew beforehand and absorbed all the information like a sponge because it was so important.”

Graduates are also given a combat first aid kid worth $350.

One of the goals of the 13 NATO nations training Ukrainian forces is to wean them from their top-down Soviet-style leadership and delegate more decisions to junior officers and sergeants.