Being on a SWAT team is physically and mentally demanding, and the Cameron County Sheriff's Office SWAT team says regular training keeps them ready for the next call.

Channel 5 News got an inside look at one of the team's training sessions, where every move and command gets practiced before being used in the field.

The team runs drills at least twice a month. Members spend two days practicing everything from firearm skills to entering buildings.

"Everything we come out here with is with a purpose. We train how we fight. So we're going to do everything the way we do it in the field," SWAT Team Leader Alfonso Salinas said.

Salinas has served on the SWAT team for five years. He says the team stays busy.

“We're getting more practice runs with it as we go. We are a very active team. We get called out for call-outs a lot," Salinas said.

Salinas explained the team added an armored vehicle to their fleet about two years ago. The vehicle can carry 24 officers, half inside and half outside.

SWAT Team Leader Rolando Sanchez joined the team 19 years ago. He says their training paid off just last week when the team deployed the vehicle to Brownsville.

Those calls can come at any time. 

"We had training this morning at 7 a.m., but last night at 11 p.m. or 12 a.m. we got called out for a barricaded subject in Primera,” Salinas said. “And Primera PD had a barricaded subject; we had to get called out.”

Sanchez says the training also helps keep officers safe in dangerous situations.

"We prepared ourselves mentally, our families for what we're doing. Because we never know when the last time we say goodbye to our families is going to be," Sanchez said.

Cameron County Sheriff Manuel Trevino says officers balance their SWAT duties with their regular assignments.

"They all have other duties, you know, but this duty itself, they know that at any time they can get called and they get activated, and their supervisors understand this, that they have to be let out or get away from their regular duties because they just got activated," Trevino said.

For Salinas, all those hours of training come down to one goal.

"We're out here training every day to make sure you guys are okay and safe and we'll continue doing it," Salinas said.

Watch the video above for the full story.