Photo By Sgt. Christopher Bigelow | A response team from the 911th Airlift Wing, Security Force Squadron enters the T/Sgt....... read more read more
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CORAOPOLIS, Pa. - Boom! The front door is forced open to the gruesome scene of two fallen individuals on the floor.
The building is silent, save the moans of a wounded man clutching his stomach in front of the door.
The team moves forward; a pack of wolves they look, listen and observe the scene around them, hunting for an individual inside of the building, a lone shooter stalking door to door seeking targets of opportunity.
The response team moves forward simultaneously looking up, down, left, right when the silence is broken.
Bang!
A scream is heard down the hall.
The team’s weapons face the cry. They have a direction now, weapons forward; they move toward the sound.
As the team members turn the corner of a long hall their boots move in unison; they’re a single unit now with one objective; eliminate the threat.
Another man lies dead in a doorway; they have the shooter cornered.
“Stack on the door,” says the team-leader.
The team stops for a moment, they seem to develop an unspoken plan.
They breach the door; all as one, they’re into the room.
“Contact!”
The gunman raises her weapon and Bang, Bang!
She falls to the floor.
“ENDEX, ENDEX, ENDEX,” is heard throughout the building as the exercise ends.
The peace and quiet of the McGarity Army Reserve Center, was broken Sept. 10, 2014, in an active shooter training exercise developed by the U.S. Army Reserve’s 316th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), and the U.S. Air Force Reserve’s 911th Airlift Wing leadership.
“It's no secret as we watch the media active shooters and attackers are becoming more predominant in our society,” said Maj. Douglas Harsh, the 316th ESC’s Force security officer.
“We don’t have to be paranoid, but we have to be prepared,” Harsh added.
According to Harsh raising awareness and testing the 316th ESC’s and the 911th AW’s preparedness levels were the primary goals of this exercise.
“I feel that these drills are the key to mitigating loss in these types of situations,” said Master Sgt. Kenneth Craft, the 911th Security Force Squadron, weapons training noncommissioned officer.
Soldiers from the 316th ESC practiced techniques from the Run, Hide, and Fight campaign, a standard published by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI on how to react to active shooters and attackers.
“We instruct people to run or evacuate to a safe place if they can, to hide or shelter in place in an office or doorway to make themselves less vulnerable, and as a last resort to actually fight the attacker to mitigate the threat,” said Harsh.
“It’s about muscle memory, the more these drills are practiced the better the chance they’ll be remembered,” said Craft.
McGarity Army Reserve Center Soldiers also tested their mass communication systems with not only local law enforcement, but also their local community and neighbors.
“The focus of this exercise was to raise awareness within our facility so that in the event that something like this were to happen everyone would know exactly what to do, and that would help us save lives,” Harsh added.
According to Harsh and Craft, this was the first exercise of this type as a joint venture between the 316th ESC and the 911th AW.
“The exercise went well, this was the first training exercise of this type in our building and we’re expecting to have more like this in the future,” said Harsh.
“People think, these things don’t happen and they won’t happen here,” Harsh added.
“Part of our job in force protection is to change people’s mindsets out of, ‘It’ll never happen here,’ to ‘If it does happen here this is what we want to do.”
The exercise gave 316th ESC and 911th AW Force Protection officers the ability to evaluate how quickly their building tenants and neighbors could be alerted and provide them with an assessment for first responder reaction time.
“We measured our ability to tell our community and our neighbors that they need to shelter in place to protect their people,” said Harsh. “Because at the end of the day, that’s what we want to do, we want to keep people safe and we want to mitigate loss.”
| Date Taken: | 09.10.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 09.14.2014 14:21 |
| Story ID: | 142104 |
| Location: | CORAOPOLIS, PA, US |
| Web Views: | 127 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Soldiers and Airmen train for the worst, by SGT Christopher Bigelow, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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