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Conducting foreign consequence management operations in response to a crisis situation can truly test one’s strength of character.
This was the situation facing the Soldiers and civilians of 21st Theater Sustainment Command and the 7th Civil Support Command during an annual exercise conducted Aug. 1 to 9 at Rhine Ordnance Barracks and Panzer Kaserne in Kaiserslautern.
During exercise Guardian Shield 11, the 7th CSC tackled a scenario involving a nerve agent terrorist attack in a European city affecting more than 250,000 people.
Col. Joseph Tirone, support operations officer for the 21st TSC, led a cell of foreign consequence subject matter experts from U.S. European Command, U.S. Northern Command, U.S. Army Europe and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, who focused on assessing the 7th CSC’s response to a nation’s request for U.S. government assistance.
The 7th CSC supplies trained and ready, forward-stationed consequence management command and control, civil support team, and civil affairs capabilities.
It may be tasked with providing immediate response or augmenting the effort to provide assistance to host nation authorities through the Department of State or lead federal agency as directed by USAREUR.
Bill Grant, a consequence management specialist for the 7th CSC, said the exercise allows many agencies to come together and improve cooperation between all the different agencies involved in dealing with a crisis situation.
“This provides the 21st TSC and the 7th CSC a chance to practice what we would be doing in a real world event,” Grant said. “There are certain tactics, techniques and doctrine that are written in any scenario that are not scripted. It gives us a chance to practice the techniques we would use in the real world in order to refine and correct what needs to be corrected before it really matters.”
Members of the 7th CSC Incident Management Team gathered into their respective sections to discuss any sudden changes within the exercise requiring problem solving while keeping the exercise on track.
GS11 also included a field training exercise that brought the Emergency Management Assessment Team, from Schwetzingen, Germany, the 12th Chemical Company from Schweinfurt, Germany, and the 773rd Civil Support Team from Kaiserslautern, together for the first time in order to train as one coherent unit.
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Nadine Johnson, the transportation integration branch land section chief for the 21st TSC working as a transportation officer for sustainment operations during the exercise said, “In the end this exercise gives participants a structure with all the tactics, techniques, and procedures that we have established.”
