Photo By Paul Lara | LTC Julie Austin, director, Fort Belvoir Directorate of Emergency Services, center,...... read more read more
At the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) on Fort Belvoir a quiet morning was punctuated with sounds of simulated gunfire, becoming “that day” that every team plans for, as phone calls flooded the Emergency Communications Center and MDA workers fled the building in all directions.
This —fortunately— was choreographed chaos by the garrison’s Emergency Management team, and a group of volunteers from Team Rubicon and Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). Every move was closely observed by subject matter experts from Installation Management Command (IMCOM), as part of the garrison’s triennial full-scale exercise.
Once the Giant Voice system blared “Exercise exercise exercise” across the sunny parade field, garrison employees all focused on the most critical response to any such crisis: · Contain the incident · Shorten the duration · Speed the recovery
Fort Belvoir Police played the lead role in containing the incident. Police cars raced to the Missile Defense Agency, arriving just four minutes after ECC dispatched the call. Officers immediately established an incident command post and rushed inside toward the sound of gunfire, prepared to apply decisive lethality to neutralize the threat. An unusual aspect of this exercise was the involvement of MDA, one of the many key defense organizations headquartered on Fort Belvoir. First responders rushing into a secure facility like this required thorough planning with MDA’s security officer, garrison security and how to manage access by escorting first responders amid chaos. As Giant Voice and garrison Public Affairs notionally announced an installation-wide lockdown, Fort Belvoir’s Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization & Security (DPTMS), now standing up its Operations Center, pivoted to Microsoft Teams channels to unify communications, as more than 15 GOC representatives were sheltering in place in their respective offices.
After 30 minutes of searching the building, police radioed the ECC that the threat was neutralized. Jerome Deniz, who coordinated the Emergency Management aspects of the exercise, noted that this training was evaluated not on a pass/fail basis, but on how well it followed written plans.
"The success of an exercise like this isn't measured in wins or losses; it's measured in lessons learned,” Deniz said. He had invested much of his planning in emulating real-world chaos and uncertainty.
By simulating a real-world crisis, Deniz hoped to test and validate the garrison’s emergency response plans, ensuring that first responders can react swiftly and effectively to neutralize threats while ensuring the safety and security of Soldiers, their Families and Army civilians – a key aspect of installation readiness.
At its most fundamental level, an armed attacker exercise is a high-stress drill insmall-unit tactics and immediate action. Many of the skills required to respond to an active shooter are the very same skills a warfighter needs to demonstrate lethality and dominate in a combat zone.
At the garrison after action meeting, Jay Condrey, Director, IMCOM Installation Directorate- Sustainment (ID-S) urged the team to “Continue to put energy on those things we did well – and integrate your mission partners at every opportunity,” Condrey said. “Work on the methodological plan to get better every day – practice makes permanent.”
Col. David Stewart, Fort Belvoir Garrison Commander, reinforced this perspective, highlighting the connection between realistic training and the strength of the response team.
“In a crisis, you sink to the level of your training, which is why we make it as realistic as possible. What I witnessed today was the strength of our 'Team of Teams.' This hard training builds trust and proves we have a disciplined, integrated force ready to protect our community,” Stewart said.
Deniz concurred, noting that high-stakes, high-stress activities reveal shortcomings that a casual tabletop discussion cannot illuminate.
“Our goal was to deliberately stress our installation's emergency response and recovery capabilities, and, in that, it was an absolute mission success,” Deniz said. “We put our systems, our processes, and our people to the test alongside our on- and off-post partners. The exercise provided us with invaluable information on how we can better integrate across all directorates and with our entire response community. We now have a better understanding of our strengths and a focused path to get even better"
It is in the relentless pursuit of improvement, the analysis of what went wrong and the acknowledgment of what could be done better, that we bolster our readiness. In the face of tragedy, the only victory that matters is the diligent work of getting better, one exercise at a time.
| Date Taken: | 03.25.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 03.27.2026 08:47 |
| Story ID: | 561312 |
| Location: | FORT BELVOIR, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 36 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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