FORT BARFOOT, Va. - More than 200 Virginia National Guard Soldiers and Airmen conducted multiple mass casualty response drills during a collective training exercise.
The Soldiers and Airmen are assigned to the Richmond-based 34th Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and High-Yield Explosives Enhanced Response Force Package, which provided search and extraction, decontamination, medical support and fatality management during the mock CBRNE response exercises.
During the CTE, the CERFP’s search and extraction team was assessed as trained on the team’s seven critical tasks associated with their mission, joining the rest of the CERFP’s elements, according to Maj. Andrew J. Czaplicki, commander of the 34th CERFP.
“Our task force is validated every three years, but due to unexpected weather last year, our search and extraction element did not finish their portion of the evaluation,” he said.
Over the five-day exercise in May, service members worked through scenarios stressing their knowledge and skills in a simulated disaster. Working 16-hour days in oppressive heat, the team responded to notional improvised nuclear explosions impacting notional cities near Virginia.
The West Virginia-based Army Interagency Training and Education Center, the National Guard Bureau and Army North observed and graded the exercise and offered guidance and recommendations.
The exercise culminated with a 12-hour graded evaluation based on the task force’s response to a simulated 10-kiloton nuclear detonation. The task force was required to occupy and establish a 5,000-square-foot mass casualty decontamination site, locate and rescue simulated survivors, decontaminate notional radioactive and environmental hazards and provide medical triage and stabilization. The task force was supported by a small command post and communications team.
“I couldn’t be more proud of how the entire task force came together around our [Search and Extraction] element,” Czaplicki said. “Everyone did a phenomenal job.”
The National Guard’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Response Enterprise, or CRE, encompasses all National Guard weapons of mass destruction and CBRN response efforts, including smaller civil support teams, 16 other CERFPs, and 10 larger Homeland Response Forces stationed at strategic locations across the nation. National Guard CRE assets are distributed to each of the 10 Federal Emergency Management Agency Regions. Each package can deploy to incidents, conduct command and control, and work alongside first responders in casualty assistance, search and extraction, mass casualty decontamination, medical triage and stabilization, incident site communications and fatality management.
Czaplicki said each Soldier and Airman has individual training requirements ranging from a few hours to multiple weeks.
“This is a very real mission for us,” said Czaplicki. “It wasn’t long ago that this task force was activated in response to the global pandemic. Our team is home to some of the few service members who have actually performed many of these tasks in a real-life environment.”
The CERFP can support first responders and civilian authorities after a chemical, biological or nuclear incident. The team includes Army and Air National Guard units from Richmond, Petersburg, West Point, Rocky Mount and Langley Air Force Base, and Airmen from the Washington, D.C., National Guard.