photo by Reginald Rogers/Paraglide Family member Freddie Meaux executes a hammer fist strike as Mike Burkett, class instructor, holds the pad. Meaux was one of eight Family members who attended the ACS-sponsored self defense class, which was held at the request of the 307th Brigade Support Battalion Feb. 6. The classes officially begin Saturday for Family members who are interested.

In the aftermath of several attacks in the local community by what was believed to be a serial rapist, Fort Bragg is currently offering self-defense and awareness classes to its female community members, enabling them to provide better protection for themselves and their Families.

Classes are officially scheduled to begin Saturday, but the 307th Brigade Support Battalion hosted a class for the unit Feb. 6.

“We try to have at least one class quarterly,” said Patrice Scott, a victim advocate, sexual assault prevention and education training specialist, who heads the classes. “Two of those classes will be held on a Saturday and we’ve designated those as mother-daughter sessions that are held for mothers and their daughters, who are at least 13 years of age and older.”

She said the other classes will be held during a weekday and its target audience are adult women ages 18 and up. Each class includes classroom instruction on risk reduction and teaches self defense techniques.

Attendees learn about issues such as safety with your children and how to prepare them for when they are away from you, safety for your home, whether you are there or away, identity theft and risk reduction techniques for sexual assaults. Scott added that the classes are valuable assets to the attendees because more than half of them have a deployed spouse.

“We try to be all encompassing with the training,” Scott said. “Our first main focus is that if you can get away, these are the things you need to be doing to protect yourself. But if you can’t and you have to fight back, the second part of our class shows some easy techniques, not like combatives or tactics, but some basic self-defense moves that are easy for women and children to be able to remember to get away from situations if they have to physically resist.”

She said they also focus on dating violence, which is useful information to the teen-aged girls who attend the classes.

“We want to make sure they’re educated and aware if they’re in dating situations. They’re starting as young as 13 years old, in regards to having dating violence issues,” Scott said. “We also address domestic abuse in the class. So we’re looking at overall safety for women, in general. These are issues that are of high risk for a woman’s safety, when we start looking at statistics and numbers. (We’re looking at) what’s mostly affecting women in our community.”
Scott teaches her portion of the class and is assisted by Jessica Lanning, who works for the Fort Bragg Military Police Department. This is Lanning’s first year co-instructing the class, but she said she is pleased with the level of instruction given to the classes.

“It gives them an insight of what they don’t normally think of on a daily basis,” explained Lanning, a crime prevention public affairs representative for the MPs. “With the information that they are given, they can put it in the back of their minds and when it comes up, they’ll remember hearing in and bring it forward.”

Amy Huffman, a Family member and Family readiness group advisor for the 307th BSB, was one of the attendees in the Feb. 6 class. Though she was unable to participate physically, she said she retained the information that was put out.

“I think it was excellent instruction. It is a great opportunity to better inform yourself and to become more assertive, because you’re learning how to be a little more prepared for what could possibly be the unexpected, especially during deployments when you’re more vulnerable because your Soldier is not there,” she said.