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PERRY, Ga. – Crushed rubble, destroyed building structures,
demolished cars, hazardous material suits and medical tents littered
the landscape.
To the unknowing public, an assumption that a
disaster just took place, but for the U.S. Army Reserve Chemical,
Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear response task force, training
has begun, and the Soldiers were training to help. More than 500
Army Reserve Soldiers and an active Army unit participated in
Operation Guardian 15, here, June 26-29, 2015.
Operation
Guardian tested the search and rescue, hazardous materials,
decontamination, and medical triage capabilities of the Soldiers,
over two phases. Phase one began near Ocala, Florida, with simulated
natural and man-made disaster operations for seven days.
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U.S. Army Reserve Soldiers from the 493rd Engineer Detachment, 412th Theater Engineer Command, from Pascagoula, Miss., and medics from the U.S. Army Reserve 331st Medical Detachment, 3rd Medical Command (Deployment Support), from Perinne, Fla., recover victims from a collapsed building during Operation Guardian 15
on June 28, 2015 near Perry, Ga. More than 500 Army Reserve Soldiers and an active Army unit are participating in the exercise to test their search and rescue, hazardous materials, decontamination, and medical triage capabilities. (U.S. Army photo by Brian Godette)
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The units then prepared for convoy movement from Ocala to
Perry, Georgia where they initiated phase two of their
training, June 27.
“This exercise [Operation
Guardian] has been more than four years in the making,” said
Lt. Col. Timothy Snider, action operator, U.S. Army Reserve
Command G-33.
“What
Operation Guardian does is allow the Soldiers to come out
and work together as one unit, building cohesion,” said
Master Sgt. Jeremy Mann, operations noncommissioned officer.
A major factor of the training was the evaluation of the
Army Reserve enabling Defense Support of Civil Authorities.
Army Reserve Soldiers can rapidly respond to disasters in
order to save lives, prevent human suffering and mitigate
great property damage, Snider said.
“The forces that
we have on the ground here are tied to CBRN Response
Enterprise, so they would be expected to be moving toward
the objective within 96 hours of notification,” Snider said.
“It is fast, but our units have proven they can move
faster.”
The participating units included the 92nd
CBRN Battalion from Decatur Georgia, the 388th CBRN Company
from Junction City, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the 392nd CBRN
Company from Little Rock, Arkansas, the 704th CBRN Company
from Arden Hills, the 493rd Engineer Detachment (Fire
Fighter) from Pascagoula, Mississippi, the 659th Engineer
Company from Spokane, Washington, the 331st Medical
Detachment from Perrine, Florida, and the 546th Area Support
Medical Company, an active duty unit from Fort Hood, Texas.
“It's a multitude of different talent here, and we
are trying to make sure we encapsulate the total integration
of the military forces with this exercise,” Mann said.
“We work well together,” said 1st Sgt. Dedraf Blash, 546
ASMC. “We have to learn each others set-up because we only
have a certain time frame that we have to get everything
ready for patient care.”
“Slow is smooth, smooth is
fast, so if we know what we are doing we can get set-up
quickly and help more people,” said Pfc. Joshua Bragger,
388th Chemical Company.
The simulated training in
Ocala prepared the Soldiers for their evaluations by
producing the after effects of a hurricane impact zone that
the units had to respond to.
The key pieces to this
training included urban search and rescue, going through
confined space and collapsed structure, followed by mass
casualty decontamination elements, Mann said.
Role
players, played by local volunteers, simulated injured
victims trapped in rubble, or affected by a chemical leak,
which prompted the Soldiers to set up decontamination tents,
medical triage tents, and extract trapped victims.
“We make it challenging for the Soldiers, to ensure that
they get something out of the training, and want to come
back and do it all over again,” Mann said.
A great
deal of the unit integration happens with urban search and
rescue, where if any casualties are found the urban search
and rescue team will bring those victims out and send them
through the mass casualty decontamination, to get them
cleaned off so medical treatment can be rendered.
The 546th ASMC Soldiers seamlessly engaged with their Army
Reserve counterparts to fulfill the mission in which they
all shared.
“Our role in Operation Guardian is to
support the chemical companies with mass casualty
decontamination, acute trauma treatment, life saving
procedures, mitigate human suffering and greater property
damage,” Blash said.
The start of phase two for
Operation Guardian led the Soldiers to Guardian Center, near
Perry, Georgia, a fully-equipped training facility that
replicated a small cityscape, complete with collapsed
buildings, smashed cars, rubble, radiation active points,
fire simulators, underground tunnels and a subway train
station.
“This is as real of a scenario that we can
hope to practice in. Besides being deployed to another
Katrina or another 9/11, this is as close as we could hope
to get,” said Sgt. Daniel Keating, team leader with the
493rd.
“This is live rubble piles, live radiation
sources, and it's definitely realistic,” Keating said.
This was the first time Soldiers have trained in the
city-like training facility, and were excited to do so.
“Guardian Center is different because it's a real full
scale city, and not just random rubble everywhere, but
things like an actual parking garage that was collapsed.
Things that we are actually going to see in the real world
mission,” Keating said.
Individuals from U.S. Army
North, alongside members of several civilian authorities,
evaluated the Soldiers, ensuring they fulfilled the task to
standard.
“HAZMAT, vehicle machinery extrication,
ropes, structural collapse, and trench are the five
competencies that we were trained on at Florida State Fire
College, and those are the five competencies we will be
evaluated on here,” Keating said.
The importance of
working with civil authorities added to the benefit of the
training for many of the Soldiers.
“Their entire job
is doing what we do once a month, so to learn the skills and
the tricks of the trade that help them move efficiently is
extremely important to us,” Keating said.
Keating,
who was recently promoted within his unit, acknowledged
direct benefit of the training and learning opportunities,
like that of Operation Guardian, provided by the Army
Reserve, to his civilian career.
“I just got hired
with a fire rescue team in Pensacola, Florida, my hometown.
I think the entire reason I got hired is due to the Army,”
Keating said. “They gave me my MOS, and they sent me to
training school, the fire academy in 2008 and the U.S. Army
Reserve Academy in the beginning of 2014.”
Staff Sgt.
Robert Matuey, team leader with the 493rd, and civilian
firefighter in Mississippi, relayed the feelings many in his
unit held about the training during Operation Guardian and
at the Guardian Center.
“With the valuable training
we're getting, I know as a task force member on the civilian
side, that you would die to have training like this. This is
top of the line training right here,” Matuey said.
The final day of the multi-day training, which tested the
Soldiers physically and emotionally, was capped off with a
huge event, testing every capability simultaneously- search
and rescue, radiological exposure.
The cityscape of
Guardian Centers, and local volunteer role players provided
the background to the multi-level disaster, efficiently
handled by U.S. Army Reserve Soldiers.
“The Army
Reserve brings a great multitude of different talents,
because we're not just Soldiers, we have other jobs,” said
1st Sgt. Gary Boda, 388th CBRN Company. “We have Soldiers
who are doctors, farmers, mechanics, electricians, so we are
civilians too, and we understand it's nice to have someone
there to help you and your Family out.
“Save
American lives- that's what we are here to do. To let the
public know that they have someone that in their time of
need they can come to for help,” Boda said.
By Brian Godette, U.S. Army Reserve Command
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2015
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