FORT EUSTIS, Va. –
More than 50 military leaders and emergency response representatives from across the U.S. met at Fort Eustis Feb. 25-27 to discuss enhancing the ability to rapidly respond in the event of a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear disaster in the United States.
The three-day conference, hosted by Joint Task Force Civil Support, allowed military representatives from the Defense CBRN Response Force to review response processes and revise the essential life-saving equipment list to help mitigate suffering following a man-made or natural disaster in the U.S.
"What we are doing [at the conference] is vital," said U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Jeff W. Mathis III, JTF-CS commander. "The discussions we have had ... are so important, because if we cannot make the response timeline that the president and Secretary of Defense expect us to make, we cannot successfully accomplish our mission."
JTF-CS provides command and control of the DCRF, which includes 88 military units located at more than 36 locations throughout the U.S. The response force provides a variety of life saving and sustaining response operations focused around six core capabilities: mission command, hazard identification and detection, search and rescue, decontamination, medical triage and stabilization, and medical evacuation.
The DCRF is comprised of four different task forces; operations, aviation, logistics and medical. The purpose of the conference was for the task forces to discuss essential equipment they would need to successfully complete their assigned mission. If the task forces lighten their total equipment load and leave non-mission essential equipment back at home station, their response to the incident site could be drastically faster.
"The DCRF cannot get to the incident site fast enough," said Marine Corps Col. David Olszowy, JTF-CS deputy commander. "Our units have a very tight response timeline and need to be absolutely critical about the equipment that they are bringing."
Simplifying the equipment lists can improve DCRF deployment timelines by preventing the transportation and over-abundance of equipment, some of which may not be absolutely necessary in order to impact the disaster response operations. With the updated task force equipment list, gear that is needed to do the job will be brought with the units and non-mission essential equipment will be brought on at a later date during the response.
"This is the first of many discussions that we'll have in the future to further simplify the deployment process and equipment lists," said U.S. Army Maj. Ben Anderson, JTF-CS future operations planner. "A field training exercise in the future will allow us to validate the list that the task forces have established as mission essential and we can make changes as necessary."
Vibrant Response 2014 will likely be the field training exercise that allows the units to validate their equipment lists. Vibrant Response is the largest DOD confirmation exercise for specialized response forces to validate their capability to execute mission command, perform technical tasks and conduct other life-saving missions. The exerciser will take place in Camp Atterbury, Ind. and is tentatively scheduled to for the end of July.
For additional information on JTF-CS, visit us online at: www.jtfcs.northcom.mil or
www.facebook.com/jtfcs.