U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa

VICENZA, Italy – U.S. Army Soldiers and civilians took part in a Master Resilience Training (MRT) class from Jan. 27 - Feb. 7. The purpose of MRT is to give Soldiers an understanding of stressors in their lives and how to combat those stressors.

“We’ve got six core competencies that we talk about that help them build self awareness, self regulation, optimism, mental agility, connection, and strength of character,” said Ms. Brittani McVay, master resilience trainer-performance expert, “All the skills that we teach them build those six competencies and those six competencies are building blocks of overall resilience.”

MRT is a two week course that contains 14 different resilience skills which fall under six core competencies.

“The Army gives Soldiers a lot of stressors and there’s a lot of programs out there, but ours is specifically, ‘when life comes at you, how are you gonna deal with it?’” added McVay, “We give them more options or tools to deal with life stressors.”

Everybody has different ways of dealing with stress that either could be handled in a healthy way or in a detrimental way. MRT teaches Soldiers and civilians how to successfully manage those life stressors.

“If they have other coping mechanisms, that's great, But we’re giving them healthier outlets to deal with things that are going to help them in the long run.” McVay added. “We ask them to do a lot of self reflection. When they put in the work, they’re being vulnerable.”

MRT not only teaches resilience skills, but also self reflection. In order for students to understand coping mechanisms, vulnerability is a necessity.

“This class has helped me in more ways than one. I’m learning about every single skill, about myself, what I can achieve, being able to be mentally strong and how to communicate better,” said U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Jacob Walters, a military policeman assigned to the 529th Military Company, 95th Military Police Battalion, 18th Military Police Brigade. “This class has opened my eyes about how to be a different leader.”

The MRT program provides benefits for military service as well as civilian life.

“MRT not only shows you your goals and aspirations, it also shows how to overcome obstacles and thinking traps,” Walters said. “You don’t want to fall into those thinking traps that are going to push you away from your goals. MRT really does help with that.”

SETAF-AF providesU.S. Africa Command and U.S. Army Europe and Africa a dedicated headquarters to synchronize Army activities in Africa and scalable crisis-response options in Africa and Europe.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn & DVIDS