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A group of army and air National Guardsmen slowly made their way to ground zero of a suspected nuclear attack on U.S. soil.
The group was covered from head to toe in protective gear and breathing equipment, like an extraterrestrial landing party from a Twilight Zone episode, their voices muffled and distorted.
The cries of the injured grew louder as the Airmen and Soldiers walked closer to the rubble and debris.
They quickly began assessing and marking victims to prioritize their extraction from the blast area.
While the stress was real, the scenario was actually part of a joint training exercise for hundreds of Soldiers and Airmen tasked with the monumental mission of providing aid during natural and manmade disasters occurring within Federal Emergency Management Agency Region II, which includes New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and eight tribal nations.
The Airmen and Soldiers assigned to the region’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and High-Yield Explosive Task Force, were testing their mettle in a controlled environment at Joint Base Maguire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey April 28 to improve their response skills in the event of an actual attack or disaster.
The training scenario included volunteer actors from the local community who appeared to be dead or injured in a realistic incident site, complete with rubble, destroyed vehicles and even a mangled subway car.
New York Army National Guard Lt. Col. Christopher Jensen, the CBRNE Task Force commander for Region II, said his Airmen and Soldiers train to react to everything from a terrorist attack on a major metropolitan center to a chemical spill from a train derailment.
“We don’t know when this is going to be needed, but we’re certain, in today’s world, this capability will be needed,” Jensen said. “We’re going to need these assets and were going to need to train on this type of exercise for a real world event.”
Airmen with the 105th Airlift Wing contribute to this mission by providing both medical and communications capabilities.
Removed from the chaos of the simulated disaster site, 105th communications Airmen were hard at work down the road making sure all the components of the exercise, including Army and Air Force, could communicate with each other in the absence of internet, cell phone, radio and landline communications.
This small team of highly-trained Airmen, utilized the Joint Incident Site Communications Capability to provide timely communications solutions by restoring critical services such as, voice and data; enabling first responders to use handheld radios and telephones to communicate with each other while simultaneously providing radio support.
The JISCC enables the establishment of command and control operations, improving situational awareness while increasing cross-agency cooperation.
Air National Guard Lt. Col. Brian Silver, commander of the 105th Communications Flight, said the JISCC is essential to allowing the forward troops complete their life-saving mission.
“This CBRNE Task Force are the ones that go in on the ground—they’re rescuing people, they’re pulling them out, they’re searching for fatalities, they’re decontaminating them, they’re medically treating them, they’re triaging them and getting them out,” Silver said. “In order for them to do that they have to have communications capability.”
The medical detachment of the task force, called the CBRNE Enhanced Response Force Package, is led by Airmen from the 105th, but also includes New York Air National Guard medical professionals from across New York state.
The CERFP detachment provides medics for search, triage and extraction of victims from ground zero, doctors and nurses to treat the patients and a support personnel to ensure their equipment stays operational.
Maj. John Reynolds, the CERFP commander, said his Airmen are dedicated to the homeland response mission, despite the additional training they must keep up with and the long exercises they participate in.
“The pride my team exhibits, as well as their enthusiastic tactical and technical level of expertise, is unmatched,” Reynolds said. “Seasoned members continuously mentor and train the newer folks to the required level of performance for mission success.”
The Soldiers and Airmen train together throughout the year, which has been crucial in overcoming some hurdles early on. The biggest being communication between the branches, Jensen said.
“Initially, when we came together several years ago, we identified the gaps, we built a cohesive team and started to speak the same language,” Jensen said. “We all come together, we work together, we always learn something new and we always develop a better way to do things.”
Silver agreed integrating was an initial challenge, but through regular training the two branches have become one cohesive force.
“One of the challenges is them understanding what we do and what we bring to the fight and us understanding what they do,” Silver said. “And then there’s just the regular standard challenges of talking two different languages.”
As the night of April 28 gradually gave way to the morning of the 29th, Airmen and Soldiers persisted despite the added challenges of darkness and fatigue.
Team after team entered the hot zone and with them returned a constant flow of patients.
The medical professionals of the New York Air National Guard treated each patient, no matter how minor the injury, real world or scenario based, while monitoring the troops closely, ensuring their safety during the exercise.
This incredible joint training endeavor complimented by state of the art communication capabilities makes these Soldiers and Airmen an elite team, ready to support their communities and save lives.
| Date Taken: | 06.05.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 06.05.2017 10:25 |
| Story ID: | 236360 |
| Location: | NEWBURGH, NY, US |
| Web Views: | 125 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, 105th Airmen hone homeland response skills, by SSgt Julio Olivencia Jr, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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