The Midway Police Department hosted an combat skills course on May 23- 24 at the Richmond Hill Department of Natural Resources Firing Range.
Nineteen students participated, including officers from Liberty, Bryan and Long counties and the Alma and Midway police departments; active-duty soldiers; DOD contract operatives; and civilians.
The two-day training course was led by senior instructor trainer Mark Rich of the Midway Police Department, Hunter  Army Airfield Polcei Chief Gary Glemboski, who is also CEO of Global Tactical Training Group, Deputy Doug Byrd  with the Hampton County South Carolina Sheriff’s Office SWAT, and Richard Johnson. Instruction assistance  was provided by the 385th Military Police Special Reaction Team from Fort Stewart.
The course is designed to bridge a gap in skills between the average officer or soldier and the SWAT or special operator. The course is supposed to provide skills for shooting on the move with multiple shooting platforms, properly deploy the various weapons platforms from vehicles, properly use available cover and provide the shooter with skills to operate in a hostile environment.
In addition, the students were taught techniques for team deployment, weapons transition drills, threat assessment and response techniques to active shooter situations while training in a live-fire controlled training environment.
All law-enforcement officers completing the training received 24 hours of POST training credit.
Participating vendors providing support for this training were Joe Marler, a military sales rep from Daniel Defense; Chris Chauvenne of Mission Essentials in Hinesville; Kyle Bradley of US Patriot in Hinesville; and Cobra Urban Survival (Peru).