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| New York Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Sean Durst and Sgt. Madalena Noyes, both members of the 24th Civil Support Team, prepare to check out a suspicious truck during a nuclear, biological, chemical, radiological response drill at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. on March 21, 2019. Members of the New York National Guard's 2nd and 24th Civil Support Team, the New Jersey National Guard's 21st Civil Support Team, conducted drills from March 18 to 21 at Hamilton College along with members of the New York State Police, Hamilton College Public Safety, the New York State Office of Fire Prevention and Control, and the 773rd Civil Support Team, a United States Army Reserve unit based in Germany. ( U.S. Army National Guard photo by Eric Durr) |
03.14.2019
Story by Eric Durr
New York National Guard
CLINTON, N.Y. -- The National Guard Civil Support Team reconnaissance mission into the apartment of the suspect in a chemical weapon attack had been going well.
New York Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Kristin Northrup and Sgt. Joshua Slish, wearing protective suits and masks and breathing tanked air, had found a gun taped to the door. They’d methodically gone through two rooms and documented the scene with a camera while keeping the tactical operations center informed via radio.
Then Slish went down.
Now Northrup needed help from the rest of the New York National Guard’s 2nd Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team (CST) to get her teammate out, decontaminated, and into the hands of the 2nd CST’s physician’s assistant.
The mission shifted to casualty retrieval as Northrup and two other 2nd CST members strapped Slish into a yellow casualty evacuation sled and began moving him down the three flights of stairs.
This scenario was one of those members of the New York National Guard’s 2nd and 24th Civil Support Teams faced as they wrapped up four days of training at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. on Thursday, March 21.
The four-day exercise enabled the New York National Guard’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team Soldiers and Airmen-- who are trained to identify nuclear, biological, chemical and radiological weapons and contamination-- to train together, while also involving other CSTs and civilian agencies.
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| Members of the New York National Guard's 2nd Civil Support Team begin to remove Sgt. Joshua Slish from his protective suit after he was evacuated from a dorm at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. on March 21, 2019. Slish was designated a casualty during a nuclear, biological, chemical, radiological exercise. Members of the New York National Guard's 2nd and 24th Civil Support Team, the New Jersey National Guard's 21st Civil Support Team, conducted drills from March 18 to 21 at Hamilton College along with members of the New York State Police, Hamilton College Public Safety, the New York State Office of Fire Prevention and Control, and the 773rd Civil Support Team, a United States Army Reserve unit based in Germany. ( U.S. Army National Guard photo by Eric Durr) |
Over 100 people were involved, said Capt. Justin Kupinski, the operations officer for the 2nd Civil Support Team.
Having all these entities involved in the drill made the training more realistic and worthwhile, Kupinski added.
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| New York Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Sean Durst, a member of the 24th Civil Support Team, takes a break while he prepares to conduct a chemical, nuclear, biological, radiological reconnaissance drill at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. on March 21, 2019. Members of the New York National Guard's 2nd and 24th Civil Support Team, the New Jersey National Guard's 21st Civil Support Team, conducted drills from March 18 to 21 at Hamilton College along with members of the New York State Police, Hamilton College Public Safety, the New York State Office of Fire Prevention and Control, and the 773rd Civil Support Team, a United States Army Reserve unit based in Germany. ( U.S. Army National Guard photo by Eric Durr) |
“In the real world all these agencies would be here anyway. We need to train like we fight,” Kupinski said.
“To be able to work with the first responder community helps us to prepare for any type of WMD event, added Major Lance Woodard the 2nd CST’s deputy commander. “For me this is what we work for, what we strive for, which is to get the CSTs together collectively, and figure out how we can plan and work together.”
The Hamilton College exercises kicked off with the insertion of a 2nd CST strike team – five personnel and a specialized survey vehicle— from a CH-47 flown by members of Company B, 3rd Battalion, 126th Aviation.
Normally, the 2nd CST would deploy to Clinton from its headquarters at Stratton Air National Guard Base by vehicle, Woodard said. But deploying by CH-47 allowed the CST to validate an important procedure for air movements.
The CST members spent March 18 and 19 going through a series of interlinked scenarios in which information about a chemical attacker was developed detail by detail. They took a break on Wednesday to reset, which they used to refit and conduct after action reviews of Monday and Tuesday’s missions, and then were back in the exercise on Thursday, March 21, Kupinski said.
This is the second year Hamilton College has welcomed the 2nd CST exercise on campus. Training at the college campus is excellent because it’s the kind of location the CST could be called to, Kupinski said.
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| New York Army National Guard Sgt. Natasia Cooper, a member of the 2nd Civil Support Team, waits for an exercise to start at Hamiton College in Clinton, N.Y. on March 21, 2019.Members of the New York National Guard's 2nd and 24th Civil Support Team, the New Jersey National Guard's 21st Civil Support Team, conducted drills from March 18 to 21 at Hamilton College along with members of the New York State Police, Hamilton College Public Safety, the New York State Office of Fire Prevention and Control, and the 773rd Civil Support Team, a United States Army Reserve unit based in Germany. ( U.S. Army National Guard photo by Eric Durr) |
“The college’s Hamilton Emergency Response Team is always looking for different ways to make training relevant and challenging,” he said.
Another plus for the Hamilton College exercise was that the 2nd CST didn’t have to use part of the team to plan the training and conduct it for rest. Instead, a company called Disaster Demons, which specializes in these exercises, was paid to create and run the training plan and scenarios.
This allows the CST to have all of its Soldiers and Airmen involved in the training, Kupinski said. This means that they can conduct multiple training scenarios at once, which helps test command and control procedures, and respond to scenarios with the total team he added.
Staff Sgt. Kristin Northrup, a CST member for four years who leads a two-person reconnaissance team, said she had been looking forward to the Hamilton College exercise. It’s larger and more challenging than other exercises, she explained.
Of course, she admitted, she wasn’t thrilled when the evaluators decided that her team mate would be a casualty.
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| A New York Army National Guard CH-47 helicopter assigned to Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 126th Aviation lands at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. to drop off a "strike team" from the New York National Guard's 2nd Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team on March 18, 2019. The exercise launched a four-day series of drills involving the CST, New York State Police, Hamilton College officials, and local law enforcement. ( Photos courtesy of Hamilton College by Nancy L. Ford) |
After wrestling Slish down three flights of college dorm stairs, she and two other CST members had to cut off his protective suit and get him on a stretcher.
That was a challenge because of the kind of suit they were wearing, Northrup said. The level A suits CST members were in completely contaminated environments—which look like a spacesuit—are easier to cut off because they fit over the breathing mask and oxygen tank CST members carry, she explained.
For Sgt. Natasia Cooper, an administrative NCO and decontamination line attendant who is new to the 2nd CST, said the week-long exercise was excellent training.
“Being able to experience the pressure, and having to maneuver through the decon and just getting hands on, has been pretty great for me,” Cooper said.
