Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Angel Martinez-Navedo | Ray Van Pelt and Diane Van Pelt are recognized at his Army civilian retirement...... read more read more
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ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. – A retired Chemical Corps colonel helped to launch the U.S. military’s premier all hazards command and establish the joint task force designed to locate, identify and eliminate Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Retired Col. Ray Van Pelt was one of the principal architects behind the establishment of the U.S. Army’s 20th Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosives (CBRNE) Command and Joint Task Force Weapons of Mass Destruction-Elimination.
Van Pelt served in the Army for 30 years before spending another eight years as an Army civilian at the 20th CBRNE Command, the U.S. military’s premier all hazards command.
Growing up in an Irish Catholic family in a working-class area of Staten Island in New York City, Van Pelt was inspired to join the Army by his father and four uncles who served in World War II. Most of his uncles also worked in New York City law enforcement or in the Fire Department. Both of his mother’s parents immigrated from Ireland.
“I grew up with a very favorable impression and respect for our military, a virtue of service and sacrifice to our nation and community and a strong sense of family and faith,” he said.
He attended college and married his wife, Dianne Van Pelt. After three years of service as an enlisted Army medic, Van Pelt attended Officer Candidate School on Fort Benning, Georgia, and branched into the Chemical Corps. Van Pelt commanded the 14th Chemical Detachment, 10th Chemical Company, 83rd Chemical Battalion and the Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah.
“My first assignment after the Basic Officer Course, Airborne and Ranger School was with the 14th Chemical Detachment and the 21st Chemical Company in the 82nd Airborne Division. I found being a young leader in the Chemical Corps to be demanding, important and meaningful,” said Van Pelt. “But it was years later on 9/11 that the importance of the Chemical Corps really came into focus for me.”
Van Pelt was in the Pentagon on 9/11 and evacuated the building with everyone from his office.
“From that moment on, the threat of asymmetrical attacks against our nation and operating forces became paramount to our national security,” he said. “In the years following 9/11, countering the nexus of terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction became one of our highest national priorities.”
The retired colonel said the 9/11 attacks helped to shift the role of the Chemical Corps from focusing on passive defense measures to supporting the interagency and joint force commander’s mission to find, exploit and disable WMD material, munitions and production capabilities before they were used.
“We started trying to get as our Explosive Ordnance Disposal Soldiers would say ‘left of the boom,’” said Van Pelt.
While serving as a military planner for counter proliferation policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Van Pelt was instrumental in the establishment of the 75th Exploitation Task Force that was given the mission of exploiting and eliminating Weapons of Mass Destruction during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He later served on the Iraq Survey Group that continued the mission.
“After 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan, the DoD and U.S. Central Command began building the force package required for Operation Iraqi Freedom,” said Van Pelt. “Our two highest strategic objectives were Iraqi regime change and the elimination of WMD. As planning developed, it became very apparent that the DoD lacked a capability that would be able to find, exploit and eliminate Iraq’s WMD program, munitions and materials.”
As a lieutenant colonel, Van Pelt was tasked to join a working group that eventually built the structure for a Joint Force Command headquarters and the supporting enablers who would conduct this mission for U.S. Central Command.
“We built an initial concept of operations and structure that would become known as Joint Task Force-Elimination,” he said. “It would be sourced using an Army Artillery Brigade headquarters for command and control (the 75th Artillery Brigade) and attached with CBRNE intelligence, operations, subject matter experts, labs and mobile exploitation capabilities and teams.”
Col. Richard McPhee commanded the 75th Exploitation Task Force Headquarters in Iraq.
Van Pelt deployed with the 75th Exploitation Task Force in Baghdad in March 2003, serving as an operations and plans officer for the task force and later as the chief of the Joint Operations Center with the Iraq Survey Group.
In Iraq, Van Pelt served together with Antonio V. Munera, the former commanding general of 20th CBRNE Command and current commanding general of U.S. Army Cadet Command.
“The units comprising the initial Exploitation Task Force did the very best they could, but they had been given a mission for which there was little doctrine, they were rapidly assembled with varied subject matter experts and as a unit they were given no realistic pre-deployment train up and preparation,” said Van Pelt.
After a few months with the Iraq Survey Group, Van Pelt returned to the National Defense University in 2004 and contributed to the NDU development of lessons learned on the DoD’s operational experience with the WMD elimination mission in Iraq.
Van Pelt’s contributions with those of others, especially Col. Barry Lowe, led directly to the Department of Defense and Department of the Army establishing the 20th CBRNE Command and the Standing Joint Task Force Elimination Headquarters.
These new organizations would meet a DoD critical capability gap as stated in the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review by Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz when he said we cannot approach this critical mission set with a “pick up” team.
The Army activated the 20th Support Command (CBRNE) on October 16, 2004, to consolidate Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear (CBRN) and Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) units into one deployable and multifunctional headquarters.
The new command was headquartered on Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, the Army’s oldest active proving ground, to leverage the CBRNE expertise on the base.
In 2006, after attending the National Defense University and commanding at the Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah, Van Pelt became the operations officer (G3) for the 20th CBRNE Command. He later served as the 20th CBRNE Command deputy commanding officer.
“This assignment would give me the unique opportunity to help stand up and build an Army and joint organization that I had initially helped scratch together in the Pentagon, joined forward in a theater of operations and then made recommendations to the DoD for future force structure to meet our nation’s combating WMD priorities,” said Van Pelt. “It was a unique opportunity for me to help operationalize the 20th CBRNE Command as a vital capability for the Army and our nation.”
Van Pelt said the command provides a trained and ready command and control capability that can support a Joint Force Commander’s mission of defeating an adversary’s WMD, CBRN or explosive threats and capabilities.
He added that the one-of-a-kind all hazards formation provides U.S. Army Forces Command with a uniquely qualified command to staff, equip, train and deploy CBRN, EOD and CBRNE forces to support operations around the world.
Van Pelt said he was particularly proud of the effort to change the command’s name from its original 20th Support Command (CBRNE) name to its current 20th CBRNE Command name that better reflects its multifunctional mission.
“We eventually found out that changing the name of the command would require approval by the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. No small effort,” said Van Pelt. “Pamela Silcox (the current Commander’s Initiative Group chief) was responsible for figuring out how to do this and preparing the staffing request.”
The name changed was approved and took effect in October 2013.
He also credited Silcox and Col. John Burpo with helping U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command to write and publish a formal doctrinal manual for the CBRNE Command.
Van Pelt said his uniformed and civil service in the U.S. Army was driven by his upbringing in a family that was focused on faith and service.
“The reason I stayed in the Army for 30 years was pretty simple. I found meaning and purpose in serving my nation and the U.S. Army,” said Van Pelt. “The professional ethics of ‘duty, honor, country and selfless service’ were very congruent with my inner personal ethics and values as a Christian. These were the same values that I grew up with in my family and were handed on to me by my WWII role models and hard-working immigrants who believed in God and family.”
The retired colonel said the U.S. Army also enabled him to provide well for his family, earn two master’s degrees and travel to 35 countries.
Van Pelt retired from the Army in 2009 and worked as a contractor for four months before coming back to 20th CBRNE Command as an Army civilian.
“Within a few months of hanging up my uniform, I found myself coming back to the 20th CBRNE wearing a coat and tie and focused on the same mission set with the same energy, intensity and dedication to service,” he said.
Van Pelt was selected as a Distinguished Member of the U.S. Army Chemical Corps in 2013.
Following a time of discernment and a four-year formation program, Van Pelt was ordained as a Catholic Deacon in the Archdiocese of Baltimore in May 2015.
In Feb. 2018, when Van Pelt retired from civil service with the U.S. Army, he went from serving his nation to serving in his church full time at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in Aberdeen, Maryland, where he focuses on parish and school programs. He enjoys working with military families assigned to Aberdeen Proving Ground and supports various veteran’s organizations in the local area.
The Catholic Deacon has traveled to El Salvador, Guatemala, Nigeria and Dominican Republic to support missionary activities there.
“I suppose in many ways serving in the military and serving the Lord has a lot in common,” said Van Pelt. “It’s about serving others, putting the mission and others first, treating others with dignity and respect, leading by example, committing yourself to a higher purpose, taking the challenge, and striving toward excellence, or in this case holiness.”
| Date Taken: | 03.08.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 03.08.2023 14:54 |
| Story ID: | 439961 |
| Location: | ABERDEEN, MD, US |
| Hometown: | NEW YORK, NY, US |
| Hometown: | STATEN ISLAND, NY, US |
| Web Views: | 167 |
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