New VR SHARP Training Helps JBLM Soldiers Feel More Involved - United States Army

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. -- Soldiers with the 1st Battalion, 94th Field Artillery Regiment had the accidental to acquisition the latest innovation successful Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention training, January 4, 2022, astatine Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

This marked the archetypal clip a portion astatine JBLM utilized virtual world headsets to behaviour a SHARP class. The VR SHARP module is loaded onto a Meta Quest 2 headset which produces an immersive situation for the Soldier to tackle antithetic scenarios. These scenarios plunge the idiosyncratic into situations wherever helium oregon she tin intervene by utilizing their ain dependable to marque decisions.

Moth+Flame, based retired of Brooklyn, N.Y., is an immersive grooming institution that uses VR headsets to bid civilian employees and much recently, the Army, Navy, and Air Force arsenic well.

“The firm satellite is utilizing this close present and they're utilizing it for diversity, equality and inclusion training,” said JC Glick, the manager of programs astatine Moth+Flame. “For the military, we’re truly focused connected termination and intersexual battle intervention.”

Pfc. Jasmine Garcia, a occurrence power specializer with 1-94 FAR, stated that past SHARP grooming was not arsenic effectual and that she did not person much penetration connected the matter.

“I similar this grooming a batch due to the fact that it really made maine consciousness involved,” said Garcia. “It gave maine an illustration of what intersexual harassment looks similar alternatively of conscionable wordy slideshows. That ocular knowing is what I request to put myself successful the training.”

Garcia explained that the module gave her caller tools to intervene successful sexually inappropriate behaviour wrong the workplace that past classes did not confidently equip her with.

“It made maine consciousness similar I tin talk up arsenic a pistillate successful the Army,” said Garcia. “Personally, 1 challenging happening for maine is to find the courageousness to spot my antheral counterparts. I present consciousness that if I were to spot thing inappropriate, I would enactment a halt to it.”

There is breathtaking imaginable for adjacent much subject grooming modules owed to a abbreviated pb clip connected production.

“Building a module lone takes astir 90 days from commencement to finish,” said Glick. “This includes penning the script, casting the actors, and gathering the module itself.”

Command Sgt. Maj. William Pearson, the bid sergeant large of 1-94 FAR, explained the aboriginal imaginable for this innovative technology.

“The possibilities are endless erstwhile you commencement looking astatine E3B (Expert Infantryman, Soldier, and Medical Badge) training, Call for Fire training, and JFO (Joint Fires Observer) certification,” said Pearson. “And present is the clip to leap connected it."