Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Mark Patton | Role players added realism to the recent Sudden Response exercise held at Fort...... read more read more
FORT BENNING, Ga. - It’s a nightmare scenario. A nuclear detonation occurs in a major American city that overwhelms local and regional capabilities.
Fort Leonard Wood’s 4th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade trains for such an event on a regular basis, and a majority of the brigade headquarters recently returned from Fort Benning, Georgia, and locations in Virginia, where they participated in an exercise, dubbed Sudden Response.
The 4th MEB worked around the clock during the weeklong exercise, which concluded Friday, where they honed their skills as part of the Defense Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Response Force, or DCRF.
The exercise was designed to test the 4th MEB’s lead as Task Force Operations for the Joint Task Force-Civil Support’s mission to save lives and mitigate human suffering in a homeland chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear environment in support of the local, state and federal agencies that would respond in an actual disaster.
Civilian agencies and units from around the U.S. gathered for Sudden Response to augment and fall under the Task Force Operations umbrella.
During Sudden Response, units were given a chance to train in a realistic environment. Fires, emergency vehicles, civilian role players, media interviews, obstacles for engineers and alerting units to transport personnel and equipment in a timely manner were just some of the challenges that participants faced.
B.K. Cooper, a manager with 40-plus years of experience for FEMA Task Force 3, Heavy Equipment Rigging Specialists, out of Marion County, California, said the hands-on experience and adjusting to the chaos that replicates what would happen in a real-world situation makes the exercise a valuable tool for the participating Soldiers.
“In an emergency you do fall to the level of your training,” Cooper said. “Get really scared and you’re going to fall to what you practiced because you don’t have time to think.”
As Task Force Operations personnel on the ground worked urban-search-and-rescue missions, casualty decontamination operations, wellness checks and more, troops from the 4th MEB headquarters worked to plan missions, allocate resources and stay abreast of the latest information coming in.
Capt. Jason Adams, a battle captain at Sudden Response, said his crew used a variety of methods to keep in contact with units on the ground in order to take the information provided and compile it so they can enable the commander to make decisions about his forces.
“It definitely tests your ability to communicate through multiple mediums,” Adams said.
For some Soldiers, the exercise served as a reminder to how important their mission is.
“It’s good to know we can save lives, get in there and do what we need to do and help out the nation if something happens,” Sgt. Andrew Hollobaugh, from the Fort Benning-based 11th Engineer Battalion, said.
Pfc. Steven Lopez, a CBRN specialist from the Fort Drum, New York-based 59th Chemical Company, said being on the DCRF mission gives him pride in his chosen career field. Lopez said though his is not a job that is glorified like the infantry, it’s an important and vital function in America’s Army.
“The time we do get that call, they’re going to be glad we’re here to take it,” Lopez said.
(Editor’s note: Staff Sgt. Kelly Malone, 4th MEB Public Affairs, contributed to this article.)
| Date Taken: | 12.12.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 12.19.2014 12:30 |
| Story ID: | 150750 |
| Location: | FORT BENNING, GEORGIA, US |
| Web Views: | 77 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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