JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash.– To ensure the Joint Force can fight and win in any environment, key U.S. Army and organizations from across the Department of War, have gathered at Joint Base Lewis-McChord to refine the complex challenge of operating through a chemical or biological attack.
The training at JBLM is a critical, bio-focused joint experiment that directly supports a larger Secretary of War and Army Transformation Initiative. The primary aim is to assess and refine battle drills for managing a suspected biological incident, ultimately enhancing force protection and mission assurance in a contested environment.
“The Joint Force must be able to achieve its mission even if adversaries use biological weapons," said Ms. Cassandra Simmons-Brown, Principal Director of the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defense Programs.
"This Multi-Domain Command – Pacific training event and the later USARPAC exercise ensure our soldiers are equipped with the tools, knowledge, and confidence to successfully execute their mission in a bio-contaminated environment.”
Simmons-Brown also noted the exercise's alignment with broader departmental goals. “This exercise demonstrates we are enhancing readiness and accelerating cutting-edge capability delivery to the warfighter. By integrating and delivering new capabilities to the Joint Force faster, we ensure that our military remains agile, adaptive, and able to prevail in any environment."
This focus on delivering cutting-edge capability was immediately evident in the dramatic increase in operational efficiency. For CBRN soldiers, a new command-and-control system allows a single soldier to monitor an entire network of sensors.
"The efficiency gains we're seeing are remarkable," explained Capt. Jacob Smith, a CBRN officer with the MDC-PAC. "When a detector is alerted, we can now generate and transmit a detailed CBRN report across the entire battlespace in under a minute, a process that used to be a 20-to-30-minute manual effort."
This newfound speed provides more than a tactical advantage; it creates a strategic deterrent. "An adversary's goal in using a biological weapon is to stop our mission and create chaos, often hoping to remain anonymous. Our capability fundamentally changes that calculus," said Capt. Amina Zeidan, Chief Microbiologist for the 1st Global Field Medical Laboratory.
"With our advanced, in-theater gene sequencing, we can move from detection to definitive identification in under six hours. This not only allows us to protect our forces and ensure the mission continues, but it also strips away an adversary's anonymity. We can tell the commander not justwhatit is, but what to do next.”
Achieving this resilience requires both cutting-edge equipment and integrated training, the result of a long-term, collaborative effort.
"Effective medical response on the battlefield requires both expert training and the most advanced tools," said Dr. Anthony Cardile, Chief Medical Officer for CPE CBRND Medical.
"In addition to providing training on Joint Trauma System clinical practice guidelines on the management of biological casualties; for this experiment, we are deploying man-portable and advanced diagnostic equipment, ensuring our medical teams can rapidly identify and respond to threats closer to the point of need." This cutting-edge equipment didn't appear overnight.
"What we're demonstrating at this exercise is not an overnight success; it is the culmination of decades of dedicated research and development," stated Dr. Keersten Ricks, Chief, Diagnostic Systems Division, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.
"Our enduring partnership with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency has been absolutely critical in transforming that foundational science into the tangible, field-ready capabilities that are on display here today, which directly protect the Joint Force."
A key part of that transformation is the continuous collaboration with the soldiers who use the technology. "The iterative fielding and feedback in collaboration with the 1st GFML is absolutely essential," said Dr. Christopher Stefan, Chief of Developmental Diagnostics at USAMRIID.
"They are the end-users, and their insights ensure our technology is not just powerful in a lab, but practical and effective in the field. The value of conducting far-forward targeted sequencing cannot be overstated. It provides commanders with rapid, definitive identification of biological threats, which is critical for force health protection and provides a decisive advantage by turning a potential threat into actionable intelligence at the point of need." The integration of these new, smaller tools at the operator level is proving to be a genuine game-changer.
"This exercise is making the case for a fundamental shift in how we operate," stated Sgt. Joshua Simpson, a Medical Laboratory Technician with the 147th Field Hospital.
"We're proving that integrating lab and CBRN teams is critical. With new portable systems, a medic can get a presumptive diagnosis for a patient in an austere environment within 24 hours, a task that could take weeks with older methods. This allows us to treat soldiers in place, prevent further spread, and strengthen our entire chain of care, even for Homeland Defense."
Ultimately, the exercise places a strong emphasis on preserving readiness and extending deterrence through defensive capability and rapid response. By enhancing these attribution capabilities and advanced detection tools, the U.S. military aims to eliminate an adversary's anonymity, preserving combat power and creating a powerful deterrent against the future use of these weapons.
The lessons learned at JBLM will be immediately applied when the integrated team deploys to the Indo-Pacific during Operation Pathways, keeping the Joint Force ahead of emerging threats and ready to dominate the future battlefield.
The success of this experiment was a result of deep collaboration between numerous organizations. Participants included the Office of the Assistant Secretary of War for Nuclear Deterrence and Chemical and Biological Defense, Policy and Programs; the Defense Threat Reduction Agency; the Joint Science and Technology Office for Chemical and Biological Defense; the Capability Program Executive for CBRN Defense; the Engineering & Systems Integration Directorate, DEVCOM C5ISR Center; the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases; the 1st Global Field Medical Laboratory from the 20th CBRNE Command; Multi-Domain Command – Pacific; and the 147th Field Hospital from the 62nd Medical Brigade.
| Date Taken: | 02.26.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 02.26.2026 14:19 |
| Story ID: | 558994 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 34 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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