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It was an animated Wednesday afternoon in U.S. Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz’s Emergency Operations Center.
Shuffling papers, ringing phone lines and lively conversations ceased when a resounding voice yelled “ENDEX!” in the busy operations center, signaling the end of an exercise.
U.S. Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz held a tri-annual Full-Scale Exercise, Sep. 9 to 11 to test the garrison’s preparedness and ability to respond to crises using realistic and challenging exercise scenarios.
Col. Jeffery Higgins, U.S. Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz commander, emphasized several critical focus areas for the exercise.
“The garrison’s focus for this exercise was to create a shared understanding of the measures required to keep the public safe, ensure the effectiveness of our Emergency Operations Center and give the exercise participants the authority and tools to proactively shape the fight by identifying and addressing threats well in advance,” said Higgins.
Developed and evaluated by Installation Management Command, the exercise was conducted to test the operational capability of the installation’s emergency response and coordination systems in an interactive manner.
“These exercise scenarios at the garrison are set up to identify, train and demonstrate the ability to contain the scenario incident, shorten the duration of the incident, and ability to speed the recovery from the incident,” said Brady Gross, exercise evaluator and deputy public affairs officer for U.S. Army Garrison Wiesbaden.
Paving the way to success
Preparations for the exercise were one year in the making as planners meticulously worked designing scenarios to stress and challenge garrison leaders and employees who are responsible to protect and serve Europe’s most unique garrison with a footprint covering 28 installation sites geographically dispersed throughout Germany’s Rheinland Palatinate and with a population of approximately 50,000 service members, dependents and federal employees.
Full steam ahead
The scenario required the garrison to respond to and mitigate multiple incidents occurring simultaneously at several installations spread over 30 kilometers from each other. Concurrently, Community Reaction Forces and additional military police patrols were activated and deployed to support the installations with the highest risks based on the exercise scenario.
Emily Roemer, antiterrorism officer for the directorate of plans, training, mobilization and security, was praised by exercise evaluators for her coordination efforts between teams from 21st Theater Sustainment Command and the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, who supported the exercise by providing additional personnel and assets as needed.
“Overall, coordination went well during the exercise, despite some communication challenges with personnel on the ground as the scenarios evolved,” said Emily. “Thankfully, I have a great working relationship with the protection coordinators from each installation, ensuring they are supported in their efforts and plans regarding troop diversion, anti-terrorism — anything and everything protection related.”
As a lesson learned, Emily aims to develop and implement plans to improve secondary and tertiary means of communication.
Tammy Muckenfuss, director of public affairs and an exercise participant, agreed with Emily’s takeaway.
“There are always opportunities for improved communications. Fast, accurate information is critical in any incident response; and getting accurate information can be one of the hardest things to do in an evolving situation when chaos and confusion is high,” said Tammy. “It takes teamwork, trust and collaboration from everyone in the garrison to verify and confirm what’s actually ‘going on’ during an incident, which then enables us [public affairs] to provide good information to our workforce and our communities quickly.”
The real MVPs
Although the exercise involved significant teamwork, Higgins and the garrison leaders recognized Emily Roemer, Stephen Lyczak and Sgt. Noelle France as the standout performers throughout. They were awarded garrison coins at an After-Action Review attended by Installation Command Europe’s Regional Director, Mr. Tommy Mize and Installation Management Command’s Deputy Commanding General, Maj. Gen. James M. Smith
“It’s a privilege on behalf of Command Sgt. Maj. Wrensch and myself to give these three individuals a commander’s coin for their excellence in leadership during a stressful period of time. We’re grateful to have these professionals on the team,” said Higgins.
Preparation is the key to success
The buck doesn’t stop with the tri-annual FSE when it comes to staying prepared. The garrison conducts annual integrated protection exercises that are internally planned and evaluated to enhance readiness and protect personnel and resources.
“U.S. Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz applies lessons learned from each exercise, along with new objectives, to continuously improve protection capabilities across the garrison,” said Lee Lewis, chief of operations for DPTMS.
During the exercise, the ALERT! Mass Warning Notification System was used consistently to provide direct contact to garrison employees, and community members. Should a real-life incident occur, the ALERT! System would be employed.
Additionally, all U.S. Army personnel stationed at or on assigned in Europe are required to register with the ALERT! Mass Warning Notification System and family members are highly encouraged to do so. To register, visit the garrison’s website https://home.army.mil/rheinland-pfalz/.
During an emergency, U.S. Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz will notify community members for the most up-to-date information through the garrison’s social media pages, https://www.facebook.com/army.rp, https://www.facebook.com/USAGRheinlandPfalzBaumholder, https://www.instagram.com/usag_rp/?hl=en and through the ALERT! Mass Warning Notification System.
If you have a real-world emergency at any time, please remember to call 1-1-0 (Germany) or 1-1-2 (Europe) from any phone line to connect with emergency services.
