Friday the 13th is one of those days that a lot of people avoid doing any travel. A silly superstition, no doubt, and it certainly didn’t bother my Civil Support Team and I as we boarded are heavily-laden Nevada Air National Guard C-130s to fly to Reno, Nevada to participate in Vigilant Guard ‘08.
Vigilant Guard is a national-level exercise, designed to practice the stand-up of an entire state’s National Guard (in this case, Nevada’s), plus bring in Army and Air National Guard units and assets from the adjoining states. In addition, police and fire fighters from the local communities get involved. In all, seven states participated in some fashion or extent.
C-130s are ancient aircraft, first coming into use in the U.S. military in 1954. As a result, they are not the most modern or comfortable forms of transportation. For example, seating is elbow-to-your-buddy’s-ribs tight, and on very uncomfortable web seats. The bathroom facilities consist of a urinal in the back of the plane that affords extremely minimal privacy - just enough to hide what you are whipping out. For men, you’ve got one hand on your johnson and one hand on a bulkhead as you sway with the movement of the plane, hoping your stream doesn’t spray onto the floor as you attempt to hit a three-inch deep urinal pan. For women, forget it. You better be able to hold it for the duration or be prepared to do some significant contortions.
In our case, we were also bringing our vehicles which are civilian GSA vehicles (all Chevrolet), built up to accommodate the HazMat gear, communications, operations, or medical requirements of the team’s sections. Interestingly, there was not enough room in the aircraft after our trucks were loaded for the flight crew to install the seats, so we were actually able to avoid the aforementioned web seating and actually ride inside our trucks. That was a first for me.
We made to Reno around 0930 and began the JRSOI process. It’s a long acronym, so suffice it to say they checked us in and told us where to go. Then, it was off to hook up with the Nevada 92nd Civil Support Team we were supporting.
The earthquake scenario had us investigating a destroyed building for possible chemical hazards, in preparation for follow-on forces of rescue teams to search the rubble for survivors. That’s not a standard CST mission. CSTs generally work with police departments to work terrorist or criminal events involving suspected or real weapons of mass destruction - biological, chemical, or radiological weapons. That kind of mission requires slow, methodical work. This mission required us to move very quickly and ignore many of the protocols we’re used to. As a result, there were some conflicts between what we’re trained to do, and what was being expected of us. Eventually, we got it worked out. But obviously, there were some real lessons learned.
The National Guard is really the first Department of Defense formation that will likely respond to a major incident in this country. I’m glad to see how proactive we’ve been with these kinds of exercises - to include aiding in natural disasters that fall outside our standard missions of battling our nation’s enemies.
Soldiers sometimes balk at these kinds of things, as they are primarily trained to kill the enemy - not help civilians with flooding. When I was younger, I felt the same way. But now, as I see how my own organization helps local communities and my state, I realize what a powerful force for good the military can be.
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