FORT DIX, N.J. - On Sunday, Aug. 11, 2013, soldiers from the 244th Aviation Brigade departed from Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst to Camp Atterbury, Ind., to participate in Vibrant Response 13.2 as Task Force Aviation.
Vibrant Response is an exercise under the Defense Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear Response Force (DCRF) mission. This exercise is intended to simulate a catastrophic event in which the Department of Defense provides support assets for local authorities.
Falling under the command of U.S. Army North, components taking part in this response exercise included Headquarters Company, 244th Aviation Brigade, 5-159th General Support Aviation Battalion, 51st Expeditionary Signal Battalion, and many more units from the National Guard and other military branches.
Federal and state military units combined their efforts in this exercise to support the overall Department of Defense mission to secure the homeland.
In this exercise, they simulated providing life-saving and life-sustaining capabilities in order to respond to a CBRN threat and minimize human suffering.
A multitude of both real-world and notional operations were exercised in order to reinforce mission-readiness capabilities within Joint Task Force Civil Support.
In responding to the catastrophic CBRN scenarios, some of the missions carried out included radiological surveillance, medical evacuation and aviation consequence management.
Task Force Aviation deployed more than 340 personnel and eight aircraft, which flew more than 60 missions in a four-day period totaling 100 flight hours in support of JTF-CS. TF-AVN also conducted 24-hour operations in order to provide aerial resupply, sling load operations, and VIP flights in support of DCRF operations.