Twitter
Facebook
As a heavy snow fell on Kaiserslautern and its surrounding communities, bringing traffic and communities to a standstill, the 7th Civil Support Command’s Incident Management Team participated in Bavarian Storm 10 on Rhine Ordnance Barracks in December in support of the 773rd Civil Support Team’s external evaluation to validate its capabilities.
The IMT was able to use the 773rd CST exercise validation as a useful integration opportunity to ensure it is synchronized with the chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear response reporting process as this has not been done before in a training exercise with the 7th CSC. This will better enable both the 773rd CST and the IMT to further hone their processes on reporting and requesting of information from a higher headquarters perspective as well as subordinate units.
“Bavarian Storm 10 was an opportunity to see how the 7th CSC IMT would function in a foreign consequence management situation to provide oversight and support to the 773rd CST,” said Capt. Meeshack R. Lee, assistant communications and information officer and 7th CSC IMT team member. “It was a great opportunity for the IMT to get out and see how the 773rd CST does business and how their operations are run. It gave us the opportunity to go back and form a plan, based on the specific requirements of the 773rd CST and how we plan to support them for future missions.”
Among the many mock scenarios for the 773rd CST’s chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear team of specialists was a chemical incident that had occurred near Kaiserslautern. The 7th CSC’s IMT was tasked to assess the situation and monitor unfolding events.
“This is a great chance for us to communicate with our units,” said Staff Sgt. Nylis G. Renschler II, the 7th CSC information technology noncommissioned officer in charge and the person in charge of tactical communication for the IMT. “The 773rd is a key piece in the foreign consequence management puzzle, and we need to communicate with them and get information flow back and forth.”
As the 7th CSC pushed on with training and supporting the 773rd CST, the weather conditions worsened, making roads almost impassable and training even more difficult. However, in a real-world situation, a unit cannot be brought to a halt by weather or adverse conditions, so the training continued.
“We have faced some adverse weather conditions, both rain and snow along with amber and red road conditions. Things here have really gone off without a hitch,” said Lt. Col. Tony Francia, incident management team officer in charge and chief of training for the 7th CSC. “The fabulous part of our Bavarian Storm 10 exercise is that not only does it work at evaluating the training level of the 773rd CST, but (it) has incorporated multi-echelon training by establishing a command/control and sustainment mechanism above the 773rd.
“In that regard, it would be the IMT’s mission to ensure that 773rd is free to execute their mission while we coordinate the joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational response and establish the base for a follow-on Joint Task Force-Foreign Consequence Management Command and Control Structure,” he continued.
As the weather improved near the end of the exercise, the IMT members of Alpha, Bravo and Charlie teams had the opportunity to exercise the 7th CSC tactical standard operating procedures and put their portion to the test.
“Bavarian Storm 10 was very successful because it allowed us to define the way ahead for future missions and training events,” Captain Lee said. “Now we can plan to support that unit for future missions.”
