Photo By Anna Berrettini | The 188th Wing hosted the Air National Guard's Specialized Personnel and Equipment for...... read more read more
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During the week of 15 Sept, the 188th Wing hosted the Air National Guard's Specialized Personnel and Equipment for Austere Reconnaissance and Surveillance (SPEARS) course at the Fort Chaffee Maneuver Training Center near Fort Smith, Arkansas.
For emergency managers across the Air Force, the course is a critical facet of their skill development and readiness for the future fight. SPEARS brings together 12 students from bases across the country to form small, mobile teams that are tasked to meet mission requirements on a variety of terrains. Over the course of one week, students put their Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) skills to the test in unknown environments and learn how to work together with unfamiliar Airmen of varying ranks and skill levels.
Over the past three years, SPEARS has proven to be an extremely effective environment for emergency managers to better understand how their CBRN skills can be applied in a real wartime environment.
“Being able to see the impact that my job has on the course, it motivates me to think about how I can bring the course back to my own flight,” Airman 1st Class Braxton Bailey, 27th Special Operations Civil Engineer Squadron, said. “Participating in the course helped me envision how we can integrate this into our own training, and what areas we need to improve to be able to compete at the level we need to compete at.”
After a few days of classroom learning and hands-on training, the course culminates with a 72-hour training exercise where students eat, sleep, and operate in the field. To help emergency managers develop necessary wartime skills, small teams of three consolidate CBRN reconnaissance gear and equipment on their person and accompanying tactical vehicles. They practice hot loading their vehicles onto Boeing CH-47 Chinooks before they are dropped at various targets across the Fort Chaffee Maneuver Training Center.
Each target emphasizes the importance of a tactical and strategic mindset when handling hazards at contingency locations. Before moving onto their next target, cadre and students come together for a hotwash to talk through the various challenges and obstacles the team may have faced.
“SPEARS prepares Airmen for the future by providing an environment that they have not seen before, but an environment that we anticipate looking a lot like the future does,” Master Sgt. Seth Daubert, SPEARS graduate and now 193rd Special Operations Wing cadre, said.
As the SPEARS course continues to develop in the future, the 188th Wing hopes to expand the class size to 16 students and host more courses throughout the year. It would also like to develop the joint nature of the course and invite Airmen of different Air Force Specialty Codes to participate. As SPEARS continues to evolve, emergency managers across the enterprise will gain skillsets necessary for the future fight.
| Date Taken: | 10.07.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 10.07.2024 09:22 |
| Story ID: | 482638 |
| Location: | FORT SMITH, ARKANSAS, US |
| Web Views: | 22 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Emergency Management Exercise Builds CBRN Skills, by Anna Berrettini, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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