Photo By Tech. Sgt. Gwendolyn Blakley | Army Maj. Gen. William Roy, commander, Joint Task Force Civil Support, cuts the...... read more read more
FORT EUSTIS, Va. – Members, both past and present, gathered together here Oct. 1 to celebrate the 15th birthday of the nation’s only standing chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear joint task force.
Joint Task Force Civil Support members reunited with past commanders in the decision support center for a presentation on the unit’s missions and events in the last 15 years. The event recognized and improvements made in the command and control headquarters.
“It’s a distinct honor for us to have three of the previous commanders present for today’s celebration,” said Army Maj. Gen. William Roy, current JTF-CS commander. “These gentlemen helped shape this headquarters from its inception.”
There have been eight JTF-CS commanders in the history of the unit and four were present at the ceremony. Roy introduced retired Army Maj. Gen. Bruce Lawlor, the first JTF-CS commander, retired Army Maj. Gen. Jerry Grizzle, the second JTF-CS commander, and retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Jonathan Treacy, the fifth JTF-CS commander.
JTF-CS was created on Oct. 1, 1999, by a mandate of Congress by the Defense against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act and established at Fort Monroe, Va. The newly-created unit was responsible to serve as the primary Department of Defense element to provide command and control for designated DOD specialized response forces to assist local, state, federal and tribal partners in saving lives, preventing further injury, and providing critical support to enable community recovery.
“We started as such a small unit and to see the growth, development and increased capabilities over the last 15 years is remarkable,” said Lawlor.
JTF-CS extensively trains throughout the year with their inter-agency partners in order to rapidly deploy the Defense CBRN Response Force to an incident site to mitigate suffering and save as many lives as possible.
Although CBRN incident response is the command’s primary focus, the unit also has the expertise and training to respond to natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes.
In March 2011, elements of JTF-CS supported U.S. Pacific Command during Operation Tomadachi in the wake of the 9.0 magnitude earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactor crisis. JTF-CS provided a joint planning augmentation cell and subject matter experts from the CBRN Incident Response Force. The support provided enabled U.S. Forces Japan and the Japanese military to conduct CBRN consequence management planning in the aftermath of a monumental disaster.
In August of that same year, JTF-CS deployed 54 personnel and oversaw more than six hours of aerial surveillance missions as part of the federal response to Hurricane Irene, which wrought flooding and damage throughout the U.S. eastern seaboard. The flights allowed FEMA and North Carolina State authorities to quickly survey the damage and put response plans into action to help the region recover.
The most recent disaster that JTF-CS responded to was Hurricane Sandy in November 2012. The hurricane, otherwise known as “Superstorm Sandy,” was the second-costliest hurricane in United States history. JTF-CS deployed 120 people to New Jersey and set up command and control headquarters to coordinate response efforts for approximately 2,000 military responders.
“We will continue to focus on being ready to deploy rapidly and employ capabilities to help American citizens in the event of an incident,” said Roy. “We are always in a supporting role but as soon as the state asks for us, we have to be ready.”
Additional information about JTF-CS and the capabilities of the Defense CBRN Response Force can be found online here: http://www.jtfcs.northcom.mil/JTFCS.aspx
| Date Taken: | 10.02.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 10.02.2014 14:59 |
| Story ID: | 144091 |
| Location: | FORT EUSTIS, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 114 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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