Photo By Maj. Leslie Reed | Oregon Army National Guard Maj. Adam Lulay, Executive Officer, 821 Troop Command...... read more read more
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HAI PHONG, Vietnam — Tsunamis. Landslides. Floods. What do these natural disasters have in common? They all are realistic scenarios that disaster management officials in both the U.S. and Vietnam continue to plan and refine their responses too.
The quote, “hope for the best, but plan for the worst” was at the forefront of everyone’s mind during the Disaster Management Engagement Activity (DMEA) in the northern coastal town of Hai Phong, Vietnam, where delegations from both the Oregon National Guard and the Vietnamese National Committee for Search and Rescue (VINASARCOM) met to exchange best practices during their annual engagement.
The state partnership between Vietnam’s VINASARCOM and the Oregon National Guard is a continuation of the bilateral relations both nations established in 1995, to further the trust, respect, and a shared commitment to regional and international security.
The Oregon National Guard and VINASARCOM became partners through the National Guard’s State Partnership Program (SPP) in 2012 and celebrated their partnership’s 10th anniversary last year in 2022. Evolving from an initial U.S. European Command program in 1991 among former Soviet Bloc countries in the Baltic region, the program officially began in 1993 and now includes 88 partnerships with 100 countries across the globe.
New partnerships are initiated from the host nation through diplomatic channels, and make their way through the combatant commander, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Joint Staff and the National Guard Bureau before approval and pairing with a state’s national guard. Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson, Chief of the National Guard Bureau, who was in attendance, said the program is looking to grow “another 30 partnerships in the next 10-years.”
Maj. Adam Lulay, a former Oregon Bilateral Affairs Officer assigned to U.S Embassy Hanoi from 2020 thru 2022, and who’s involvement stems back to the partnership’s initial meetings in 2012, said the “original agreement was to start with Incident Command System (ICS) classes and expand from there.” Lulay has since gone on, as both a planner and an instructor, working with VINASARCOM through the basic ICS classes (100-400, 700-800, National Incident Management System). It’s now, says Lulay “that we pivot to a true exchange” following the 5-year plan he developed back in 2020. “We proposed topics (for this year’s presentations) based off of incidents Vietnam experienced and responded to,” paired together with additional VINASARCOM guidance.
During the week-long event, both country’s delegations presented case studies covering topics such as medical evacuation, search and rescue, communications, hazardous material, COVID-19 and landslide responses-- including more than just military subject matter experts.
Aaron Bielemeier, Fire Training Coordinator, Oregon Department of Public Safety, Standards and Training was once such presenter during the engagement. Bielemeier explained that Maj. Lulay “asked if I would attend and accompany the group for this trip to Vietnam,” he explained. “He was looking to put together a diverse background group for helping to explain how Oregon responders take action on the civilian side, and how the military can assist as the emergency evolves.”
Oregon’s delegation included members from a variety of agencies, to include the U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Army Reserves, the Center for Excellence in Disaster Management, the Pacific Disaster Center, Oregon Department of Public Safety, Standards and Training and the Oregon National Guard.
A career firefighter, Bielemeier presented two case studies, one on hazardous material response and another covering search and rescue operations in a building collapse, “we explained how an Incident Management Team works and its importance, so when a local responder or incident commander is exhausted and needs more help, it isn’t’ just asking for more resources.”
“It’s asking for a larger overhead team to come in for an event that can evolve over multiple days and potentially even months.”
Both delegations were “working towards the same end goal, trying to better one another” shared Sgt. 1st Class Patrick Gonzalez, an operations non-commissioned officer, with the 1186th Military Police Company. The DMEA trip was Gonzalez’s first overseas engagement, outside of regular combat-type deployments.
Support from commanders at the lower level is significant, “not only does is give guard members the ability to opportunity to operate in a global environment,” voiced Hokanson, but there “may be a day in the future where we’ve got to go there, and so our ability to understand the culture, and the willingness of our military personnel, really to try and make the communities more resilient and able to withstand disasters, whatever type they may be, is really important.”
During Gen. Hokanson’s remarks he further explained there are “many things to challenge us, they come in the form of climate change, energy crisis, global pandemics, malevolent actors, these challenges aren’t confined to a single country, a single region or a single hemisphere, both directly and indirectly they impact all of us, they are our collective problem and addressing and overcoming them is our collective responsibility.”
Hokanson, who previously served as Oregon’s Adjutant General, vocalized that his visit was “especially significant to me as an Oregon Guardsman. Since the partnership between Vietnam and the Oregon Guard began more than a decade ago, I’ve seen how the relationship between our Guardsmen and our Vietnamese partners has grown.” He fondly remembers visiting in 2014, two years after the partnership first began.
Now serving as the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, the organization’s top spot, Hokanson reflects “If I go back to my last visit here in Vietnam, nine years ago, we were talking about how they would build these disaster management centers and now today there are 14 of them built.”
Disaster Management Coordination Centers (DMCCs) are “dual use” buildings offering both shelter and a central location for responders to coordinate disaster relief efforts within the province and are built to sustain a category three typhoon. One of the first DMCC’s built in 2015 was one in Quang Ngai.
Lt. Col. Sung Yoon Ji, another former Oregon Bilateral Affairs Officer assigned to U.S. Embassy Hanoi, recollects DMEA being “a much smaller event when I started as the BAO in 2017.” During his tenure, he recalls the 2018 DMEA took place in Quang Ngai (central coastal area) and was the first time DMEA was executed in a province versus the capital, Hanoi. “Coming back to Vietnam this year was familiar,” said Ji, who in addition to planning the annual event while serving as the BAO between 2017 thru 2019, participated in both the 2022 and 2023 events.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this was the third time that the partners met face-to-face for the annual engagement since 2019. Senior Col. Pham Hai Chou, the Vietnamese Head of Delegation, spoke to meeting virtually in 2021, but said that he was “very happy to meet in person again, and to share their experiences of disaster response.”
The Guard is uniquely situated for the SPP mission, as unlike their active duty counterparts who can change out every two to four years, a National Guard member’s service to their state is more consistent and long-term. This allows the same personnel to engage and develop relationships. As Gen. Hokanson described, “We provide a chance for relationships to develop, not just over the days and weeks we train together, but over decades and the duration of careers. We improve readiness, enhance interoperability, and build cooperation.”
When serving as Adjutant General, Oregon recalls Hokanson “Lt. Gen. Minh (Sr. Lt. Gen. Pham Ngoc Minh) was the commander of VINASARCOM. I had not seen him in nine years, and it was so good to see him and that partnership, that relationship just puts it at a whole other level.”
Members of the delegation also used the DMEA event as an opportunity to work with the community, engaging with students at Hai Phong University on a variety of different subjects, from practicing their English, to participating in cultural activities such as traditional dancing, sampling traditional foods, musical presentations and playing traditional games.
“Yes, we enhance our capabilities, yes, we gain essential experience, but we also establish ties that withstand the test of time and distance. We cannot surge trust; we can only build it. Person by person, day by day, year by year” Hokanson articulated.
One take away for Bielemeier was the fact that “Vietnam has an urban search and rescue team, multiple teams that are regionally spread out. Recently when Turkey experienced their earthquake, teams from all over the world responded. We had people from Oregon that responded, as part of the U.S. team and so did Vietnam.”
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs (OCHA) response included teams from both countries, and while the Vietnamese and U.S. responders were in different locations, they both had similar numbers of personnel and K9s on the ground helping with efforts near Adiyamn and Hatay.
“What we start in training will transition into working more together in the future,” says Bielemeier. “I would love to do a ride along with their fire department and the emergency medical side,” he muses. “I like to learn…and in order to keep growing, and gaining more knowledge you have to go to different places and learn.”
| Date Taken: | 05.19.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 06.22.2023 17:12 |
| Story ID: | 447731 |
| Location: | HAI PHONG, VN |
| Web Views: | 321 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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