My CLS course was less than a week. I still have the certificate from the army, it says it was "40 hours" but it was less. I do not recall being trained in chest decompression or anything advanced at all other than IV's, and we where not trained in any airway procedures beyond an OPA.
All soldiers carry atropine and the other nerve agent antidote. It was in our pro mask holster. We all got trained in that, its in the soldiers manual of common task skill level 1.
CLS was a very basic first aid class focused only on trauma, no medical and with our only advanced skill being able to give IV's. It sounds like maybe there is more to it now, unless the instructors are just adding there own criteria into the program. It did come with a large a medical book we where encouraged to reference, %100 cook book. The book may have contained advanced procedures and walked a average joe through how to preform them step by step, I do not recall.
The idea behind it I gathered was buddy-aid is better than no aid at all in combat, there is only 1 medic per infantry platoon (some times less) so in an MCI he can only do so much. We tried to have 1 CLS per squad. There is no way in hell they would have gave us morphine! Of course I never went to Iraq, might make since there. Anyway....
One example would be If someone was bleeding out another solider could stop the bleeding and start an IV until the real medic got there, or if he was dead until another medic arrived.
I carried OTC meds in my bag, 800mg motrin, a sam splint rolled up, at least 2 IV bag setups, some bandages, gauze, foot powder, mole skin, occlusive dressings, a few OPA's some gloves, and a face shield. and a 9 line medevac cheat sheet, Thats it. The CLS bags we where issued where small, about the size of a fanny pack. I wore mine on the back of my LBV above my buttpack or in place of it sometimes.
