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On an unusually sunny Monday morning in June, members of the 7th Civil Support Command Headquarters gathered on the parade field at Daenner Kaserne, here, to begin a four-day exercise known as Daenner
Cyclone ‘10.
As the outside temperature climbed into the 90s, it started to boil inside the operations center as 7th CSC Soldiers began setting up and testing their equipment.
Lt. Col. George B. Loughery, the 7th CSC’s Consequence Management Team director, said that Daenner Cyclone tested the ability of the command’s headquarters to deploy to a site and become self sufficient by providing its own power and establishing communications.
“We wanted to backward plan and find out things that we don’t know,” Colonel Loughery said. “Do we have enough generator power? Do all the light sets function? Do we need heating or air-conditioning? How are we going to run the CAT5 cable (network cable) through the floor … what kind of force do we submit and how would the sections function in the field?”
Since the 7th CSC activated in September 2009, the CMT has grown: adding personnel, building a knowledge-base and gaining experience by participating in various training events. The goal is for the unit to become a self-sustaining initial responder to assess and manage a disaster or incident, Colonel Loughery said.
A CMT is defined by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a comprehensive team to either augment ongoing operations through the provision of infrastructure support, or when requested, transition to an incident management function to include all components or functions of a command and general staff.
This is the first time the 7th CSC’s CMT set up new communications equipment in a field environment, said Colonel Loughery.
“We have brand new equipment that we have not used before. We have new tents and a new communications satellite and we did not know how they would function in the field,“ Colonel Loughery said. He added that Daenner Cyclone was preparation for two upcoming larger exercises.
In the end it was the 7th CSC’s non-commissioned officers who took charge of the exercise and made everything happen. They found the problems and designed the course of action to repair them, Colonel Loughery said. “The NCOs knew where to go to get solutions and knew what they were doing.”
Master Sgt. Duane Chrismer, 7th CSC, Chief of Staff Engineer senior NCO said the training went very well. Both the enlisted and the officers worked well side by side, stepping in as needed, picking up the short ends as they were coming.
“Like any good training, as long as we are learning or improving and moving forward — which we will, this will be great,” Sergeant Chrismer said. “It is a great baseline and with the great NCO corps that we have here and enlisted along with our officers we cannot fail. We will only get better.”
But the 7th CSC’s work was not finished. Just two weeks later, as the dust had settled from the first Daenner Cyclone exercise, a group of 7th CSC Soldiers were again put to the test: they were placed on alert.
Twelve members of an advanced echelon were sent to Panzer Kaserne to prepare for movement. They loaded vehicles with everything needed for a rapid deployment, and made their way back to Daenner Kaserne parade field to set up the command center again, showing they can be self-sufficient.
At the end of the exercises, 7th CSC Soldiers packed up their satellite, disassembled their equipment, and took down their tents. The Daenner parade field only had a few scuff marks to show that the 7th CSC had been there, but the Soldiers left with the knowledge only gained through experience.
