Virginia Department of Military Affairs personnel scheduled to display equipment outside General Assembly building Jan. 21

Photo By Cotton Puryear | Members of the Virginia Army National Guard, Virginia Air National Guard and Virginia Defense Force demonstrate some of their domestic operations capabilities with equipment displays outside the Virginia General Assembly Building Jan. 15, 2015, in Richmond.  

RICHMOND, VA, UNITED STATES

01.06.2015

Story by Cotton Puryear 

Virginia National Guard Public Affairs

RICHMOND, Va. - Members of the Virginia Army National Guard, Virginia Air National Guard and Virginia Defense Force will be on hand Jan. 21, 2015, with equipment displays in the Darden Garden outside the Virginia General Assembly Building in Richmond from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. to demonstrate some of the capabilities the Virginia Guard and VDF can provide while on state active duty.

Brig. Gen. Timothy P. Williams, the adjutant general of Virginia, will host a reception for members of the General Assembly from 10 to 11:30 a.m. in the 4th Floor West Conference Room in the General Assembly Building. Senior Virginia Guard leaders will be in attendance to answer questions and provide insights into the missions and capabilities of the Guard.

Approximately 70 Soldiers from the Virginia Beach-based 529th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 329th Regional Support Group are currently on federal active duty in Kuwait where they are the mission command headquarters for approximately 1,600 military and civilian contractor personnel performing critical combat sustainment operations for U.S. and coalition forces in the region. The Virginia National Guard also has approximately 12 Soldiers and Airmen deployed all over the world, including Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, UAE, Philippines, Qatar and Kosovo.

The Virginia National Guard has lost 10 Soldiers to hostile enemy action since Sept. 11, 2001, and four of those Soldiers were honored at ceremonies held in Winchester in August and and Fredericksburg in December, where the readiness center was renamed in their memory.

In addition to its federal mission, the Virginia National Guard also has a state mission. Virginia Guard Soldiers, Airmen and members of the Defense Force conducted a variety of domestic operations missions, including supporting Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s inauguration, assisting with water sampling in West Virginia following a chemical spill, assisting citizens of the commonwealth during heavy snow and hazardous road conditions, assisting with the search effort after an F-15 fighter crashed and demolishing derelict structures in Petersburg.

Units scheduled to participate in the displays outside the General Assembly Building are the Virginia Guard’s Counterdrug Program, the 34th Civil Support Team, the command and control suite of the Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear High Yield Explosive Enhanced Response Force Package, the 192nd Intelligence Squadron, the 200th Weather Flight and a Mobile Communications Platform from the VDF.

The Virginia National Guard Counterdrug Program places Guardsmen in support of law enforcement agencies with criminal analysts, ion scanning for drug residue on currency and aviation support. The program also provides prevention, treatment and outreach services to Guardsmen and family members and manages the Joint Substance Abuse Program for drug testing.

The Fort Pickett-based 34th CST is comprised of 22 full-time Army and Air National Guard personnel with the mission to support civil authorities at a domestic CBRNE incident site with identification and assessment of hazards, advice to civil authorities, and facilitating the arrival of follow-on military forces during emergencies and incidents of weapons of mass destruction terrorism. The unit complements and enhances, but does not duplicate, state CBRNE response capabilities is divided into six sections: Command, operations, communications, administration/logistics, medical/analytical and survey.

The CERFP can conduct tasks associated with incident management, search and rescue, mass decontamination, medical triage and treatment and fatality search and recovery. The force is made up of traditional Soldiers and Airmen from units based in Petersburg, West Point, Rocky Mount and Langley Air Force Base as well as the District of Columbia National Guard.

During domestic operations, Airmen from the 192nd Intelligence Squadron use full motion video from fixed and rotary wing platforms to provide incident awareness and assessment. The 192nd IS also provides systems interoperability for emergency managers and first responders to enable effective communication across agencies and jurisdictions. IAA synchronizes and integrates the planning and execution of various information capabilities which provide situational awareness and assessment to civil authorities in support of domestic operations.

The 200th Weather Flight provides tailored tactical combat-environment weather observing and forecasting support to the Army National Guard’s 29th Infantry Division and to the adjutant general of Virginia and joint staff during hazardous weather situation in the commonwealth. With the assistance of the 200th Weather Flight, the Virginia Guard is able to anticipate the impact of hazardous weather and help determine the most effective employment locations for Virginia Guard personnel.

The VDF is an all-volunteer state military force authorized by the Code of Virginia and organized under the Virginia Department of Military Affairs reporting to the adjutant general of Virginia. The organization capitalizes on the civilian skills and expertise of it members and trains to augment the Virginia Guard at command and control operations centers and provide liaison teams for incident management assistance as well as communications and security augmentation.

The Virginia National Guard trains to be a premier ready, relevant, resilient and rapidly responding operational force capable of executing the orders of the president of the United States and the governor of Virginia to deploy mission-tailored forces to save lives, protect people and property, ensure safety, relieve suffering and provide reassurance. The National Guard is a great value for the commonwealth and the nation and can maintain readiness at a fraction of the cost of active duty forces. The National Guard has a unique state and federal mission set, and members bring a wide variety of specialized civilian-acquired skills, experience and mature leadership to any mission in addition to their military skills.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, more than 15,000 Virginia Guard Soldiers and Airmen have mobilized on federal active duty for homeland security missions and combat operations, sustainment support and peacekeeping in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and other locations around the world.

Since 2001, the Virginia National Guard has called up more than 7,300 personnel for duty to support domestic emergency operations as part of a coordinated statewide response, as well as missions in Louisiana, Mississippi, West Virginia, New York and Vermont.

Photos from last year’s event on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vaguardpao/sets/72157639803814186/

• Date Taken: 01.06.2015
• Date Posted: 01.16.2015 12:42
• Story ID: 152164
• Location: RICHMOND, VA, US