Wisconsin Air Guard refueling wing conducts emergency response exercise

By Senior Airman Ryan Kuntze
128th Air Refueling Wing

March 11, 2010 - As the sun rose on a chilly Saturday morning in March, two security forces team members paid vigilant attention at the front gate of the Gen. Mitchell Air National Guard base.

A silent procession of three emergency response vehicles was outbound from the base. Professionalism was evident on the Guardsmen's faces.

Lying on the side of the base-access road, near Grange Avenue, were two abandoned 55-gallon drums leaking clear fluids.

The 128th Air Refueling Wing conducted the above scenario as an emergency response exercise at 9 a.m. on March 6.

"We are required to have two terrorist-use Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosive exercises every year," said Staff Sgt. Nathan Thrun, the emergency management program director.

The exercise involved the 128th ARW's Security Forces Squadron and fire department, Thrun said. The goal of the exercise was to examine the 128th's ability as a first responder in an emergency response situation, which allowed the exercise to exclude a majority of the base.

"In this instance, city personnel were only notified," Thrun said. In a real-world situation, the 128th Air Refueling Wing emergency response team would secure and cordon off the affected areas until a city HAZMAT [hazardous materials] team took control of the situation, he said.

The scenario for the exercise involved a mentally-unbalanced terrorist who used two separate chemicals in the 55-gallon drums to create a potentially deadly mixture, Thrun said.

"These are over-the-shelf items," Thrun said. "If someone bad wanted to use this, all he had to do was mix them."

Such a scenario highlights the reality that not all terrorist actions will involve complex weapons or carefully-planned attacks. Though this situation was an exercise, the threat for such an attack does exist.

"This was an incident of someone being smart enough to make this stuff, but not smart enough to appreciate his choices," Thrun said. Such exercises also have real-world applications for the 128th.

"Continuing to practice like this can ensure that we can meet these threats," Thrun said. "I know doing this helps us better prepare for it."