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FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. — If an incident occurs in the United States involving chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive materials, certain emergency systems are in place to assist citizens through the crisis. However, if the crisis becomes too large, active-duty military personnel may be called in to offer their assistance in the form of CBRNE consequence-management response forces, or CCMRF.
More than 700 service members from the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy have come to participate in the joint military exercise, Vibrant Response '09, running, Aug. 1-9, to refresh their CCMRF training and become reacquainted with working in a joint environment.
"We are training to respond to any chemical, biological, nuclear, radiological, or high-yield explosive event or incident, in accordance with the [Federal Emergency Management Agency] National Response Framework," said Army Maj. Keith Haufler, joint CBRNE consequence management planner. "We are the Department of Defense's support to civil authorities should they call upon us to respond."
While the training scenarios help service members know how to respond, just being able to interact with one another is training in itself.
"In a lot of ways the interactions with our sister services is just as important as the training scenarios themselves," explained Air Force Capt. Anthony Coggin, domestic operational law attorney. "Reacting to the explosions is all well and good but we are just sort of a supporting force and in order to react to the situation we have to be able to work together. Once we are all working together then we are best situated and most capable to respond to the issue."
Communication is one of the largest issues that each of the sister services has to overcome during their training exercises. Each branch has its own military jargon and acronyms they are accustomed to and when they come together to work, they have to be able to communicate. Sometimes getting past those communications barriers can be rather difficult.
"Each service has a different way of doing things," explained Gunnery Sgt. Teresa Smith, JTF-CS operations non-commissioned officer in charge. "They each have a different mentality and different priorities. One branch may see one thing as being important and another branch may not see the same thing as being that big of an issue."
Participating in exercises like Vibrant Response, and learning how to communicate and share important information, will help the services overcome these problems, Smith went on to explain.
While the training environment can sometimes become stressful, service members still find value and enjoyment in the training.
"It teaches you patience and understanding," explained Navy Lt. Elizabeth Smith, medical operations officer, JTF-CS, "and it gives you a better appreciation for the joint environment."
| Date Taken: | 08.07.2009 |
| Date Posted: | 08.07.2009 21:32 |
| Story ID: | 37277 |
| Location: | FORT LEAVENWORTH, KS, US |
| Web Views: | 475 |
| Downloads: | 430 |
This work, Vibrant Response '09 trains services on multiple levels, by Crystal Burns, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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