Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Ben Houtkooper | Soldiers of the 34th MIlitary Police Company's arrive at the Olivia Regional Airport...... read more read more
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OLIVIA REGIONAL AIRPORT, Minn. — Within hours of receiving the call, the Minnesota National Guard's Quick Reaction Force (QRF) was on the road to the Olivia Regional Airport, Thursday.
Soldiers of the 34th Military Police Company left work and home, put on their uniforms to play their part in the Guard's state mission to assist local officials.
The call to react woke Pfc. Logan Welter of Stacy, Minn., whose civilian job kept him late the night before.
"This helps me stay battle ready." said Logan. The exercise gives him and others a better understanding of their role in the QRF.
"We're doing a rehearsal of the QRF to test our ability to react, our response time to establish security and checkpoints." said 1st Lt. Trista Martinson, commander of the 34th MP Company and incident commander for the exercise.
"These are the people that are protecting our interest, so any training that we can help them with helps us." said Dale Hardy, Olivia Regional Airport Manager. Hardy wasn't the only Olivia resident to assist with the exercise. Whether it was the police chief or the nearby restaurant that offered up a hot spaghetti dinner for the Soldiers, Olivia opened its doors to the 34th MP Company.
"Today gave us the opportunity to test our new equipment." said Mike Hennin, Renville County emergency management director. The county recently received a law enforcement and terrorism grant that allowed them to purchase an interoperability box that helps several different agencies communicate between previously incompatible radios.
"It's a learning experience." said Martinson. "We are at a crawl phase. We've never done a full scale exercise."
The "run" phase for the MP's starts Saturday as they hold a second exercise at the Prairie Island Nuclear Generating Plant.
| Date Taken: | 08.16.2007 |
| Date Posted: | 08.23.2007 22:01 |
| Story ID: | 11953 |
| Location: | OLIVIA REGIONAL AIRPORT, US |
| Web Views: | 329 |
| Downloads: | 278 |
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