Citizen Soldiers Prepare for the Worst by Training with the Best

Courtesy Photo | New York Army National Guard 1st Lt. Christopher Clements briefs members of his platoon from Company A, 27th Brigade Special Troops Battalion as they prepare to conduct urban area confined operations during Operation Civil Support, the joint interagency training alongside members of the Fire Department of the city of New York. The daylong training exercise involved the response to potential Hazardous Material or Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear or High Explosive incident anywhere in the city of New York. The New York National Guard deployed and trained the state's 2nd Civil Support Team and CBRNE Enhanced Response Force Package. The combat engineers provide the search and extraction element of the Guard's CERFP response force. About 500 total Soldiers, Airmen and volunteers of the New York Guard participated in the training. (U.S. Army photo/Lt. Col. Richard Goldenberg)  

UNITED STATES

05.03.2008

Courtesy Story

New York National Guard

By Lt. Col. Richard Goldenberg
New York Army National Guard

NEW YORK – More than 500 New York National Guard Soldiers, Airmen and volunteers of the New York Guard trained alongside the City of New York Fire Department at the fire training academy on Randall's Island May 3 to strengthen the coordination, liaison, communications and procedures for employing the New York National Guard's premiere Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear or High Explosive response elements to assist civil authorities.

With the world's largest municipal fire department, the city of New York responds daily to the challenges of local emergencies and has national and international fame since their heroic response during the World Trade Center attacks of 2001. Rescuing fellow New Yorkers is the mainstay of the FDNY and the group of firefighters and emergency medical service personnel have earned their nicknames as "New York's Bravest and New York's Best."

Those emergency responders were again challenged during a training exercise that included a bus explosion, car fires, building fire and collapse and a chemical incident in a nearby subway station. With a scenario that placed tremendous demands on responding fire stations and a nearby National Guard response force, firemen and EMS members from the FDNY had an opportunity to train, mentor and learn from some of the New York National Guard's most capable response elements.

The response training exercise, known as Operation Civil Support, prepared members of the New York National Guard to better support civilian authorities with hazardous material assessment, casualty extraction, decontamination and medical triage.

The exercise began with an alert and mobilization of forces from Western and Central New York, the Capital Region, Hudson Valley and New York City. Staging at the National Guard's training site at Camp Smith, near Peekskill, the response forces conducted joint reception, staging and onward integration rehearsals needed to gather together and disperse military forces, linkup with equipment and deploy forward to an incident site.

The movement of troops included the airlift of engineer personnel and equipment from Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station, the home of the Air National Guard's 107th Airlift Wing to Stewart Air National Guard Base, home of the 105th Airlift Wing. Both Air Guard elements supported airfield control and embarking/debarking operations.

The exercise included a realistic scenario with state-of-the-art simulated casualties and buildings, including a mockup subway station at the Fire Training Academy on Randall's Island in New York City. The 27-acre waterfront facility has nine buildings, hands-on training with simulated fires and smoke structures and a debris field for training for confined area casualty extraction.

The exercise provided members of the National Guard's response teams the chance to learn from the FDNY and EMS members in their core competencies of technical rescue, structural evacuation and CBRNE/HAZMAT life safety and decontamination.

"We simply wanted to train with the best," said Lt. Col. John Andonie, Director of Military Support for the New York National Guard for the exercise. "This exercise was a great place to start and then go forward," he said.

Perhaps the most important exchange throughout the daylong training was the information about roles and capabilities between the various fire company captains, battalion chiefs and senior FDNY officials with their National Guard counterparts.

"Knowing each other's capabilities is the baseline to get things done," said Deputy chief Michael Puzziferri, the acting Counterterrorism and Emergency Preparedness chief. "That basic understanding helps us employ the Guard more quickly and effectively, and in these situations that time can save lives," he said.

The training involved two key elements of the National Guard's homeland security response forces for CBRNE incidents.

Initial assisting the incident commander at the site was the New York National Guard's 2nd Civil Support Team, whose 22 members are trained, certified and equipped to assist civil authorities and rapidly identify, assess and respond to weapons of mass destruction or hazardous materials events.

The team was further augmented by a traditional National Guard CBRNE Enhanced Response Force Package. Its 300 Soldiers, Airmen and N.Y. Guard volunteers mobilize and deploy with equipment to provide emergency responders with additional CBRNE casualty extraction, decontamination and triage for the evacuation and initial treatment assessment of victims of a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, high explosive or other hazardous materials incident.

As the decontamination and medical teams prepared their sites for potential casualties, the FDNY incident commander called forward the search and extraction team to integrate with the collapsed building rescue operations.

"Chief Hayde , the incident commander on the scene, chopped us up and got our folks in line with the FDNY rescue personnel right away," said Lt. Col. Dennis Deeley, the CERFP Commander. "I really appreciate that firemen got them right in there and integrated them onto the rescue team," Deeley said.

"I saw of a lot of mentoring and things to sustain," noted 1st Lt. Christopher Clements, fan engineer from Company A, 27th Brigade Special Troops Battalion. Clements directed the CERFP search and extraction team during the collapsed building casualty evacuation training. "We've done some training with confined spaces, but we're definitely not the same capability as these guys. It has absolutely been a learning experience for all our guys," Clements said.

Operation Civil Support also trained the National Guard standing homeland security task force for command and control of response forces in New York City. Task Force Empire Shield, the National Guard full-time state active duty task force oversaw the employment of the Guard's CBRNE response forces, security elements, and communications and logistics forces. The task force and its operations center is based at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn.

"We have to understand the capabilities of each other to be better integrated when the time comes to do this for real," said Capt. James D'Avolio, from the FDNY Hazardous Material Team.

"Seeing that interaction between a Guardsman and fireman at the grass roots level made this event worthwhile. This was a tremendous success for us," Andonie said.

• Date Taken: 05.03.2008
• Date Posted: 05.06.2008 09:46
• Story ID: 19151
• Location: US