LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas –
"Exercise, Exercise, Exercise."
That was the operative phrase repeated for three days last week at Lackland, Randolph and Fort Sam Houston as the installations tested mission readiness to a simulated real world incident.
The Joint Base San Antonio exercise gauged responses to an Anti-Terrorism/CBRNE (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear explosives) attack simultaneously at the three installations. The AT/CBRNE simulation is one in a series of scheduled JBSA exercises throughout the year required by Air Force Instructions and directed by the Air Education and Training Command Inspector General.
An Exercise Evaluation Team, or EET, at each installation develops a scenario, objectives and events along with inject cards to practice for real world events.
"We try to be as realistic as we possibly can, depending on the situation," said Edward Killea, EET chief lead, 502nd Air Base Wing OL-A, Lackland. "We look at real world incidents and try to incorporate them into the scenario if we can.
"For example, in an active shooter exercise, we go back to the Fort Hood shootings. We can look at that to see how we would respond and recover if a similar situation happened at Lackland."
The AT/CBRNE exercise started with a two-day build up, March 28-29. Force protection controls, or FPCON levels, changed as information was assembled on possible terrorist threats at the three JBSA installations. The exercise culminated with a simulated Tabun chemical attack simultaneously at the JBSA installations on March 30.
The 802nd Security Forces Squadron, 802nd Civil Engineer Squadron emergency personnel, and 59th Medical Wing responded to the simulated attack on a Lackland building on an unseasonably cold and windy morning.
Lackland EET members made observations and evaluations at the training exercise, held on the base's basic military training south side at the end of Carswell Avenue. Those findings were then forwarded to the 502nd ABW EET office for review.
Personnel from 59th MDW permanent party and Air Force Basic Military Training trainees simulated the casualties: three dead, 44 injured and four with no symptoms.
For the exercise, prior information over the first two days indicated to the bases the possible use of Tabun in the simulated attack. The first responders to the scene were security forces and fire department, and medical personnel. The incident commander requested bio-environmental personnel to detect the chemical used in the attack.
"There were certain things we couldn't do because of the weather, so we simulated them," Mr. Killea said. "In those situations, we used verbal responses as an example from the Incident Commander to evaluate a particular area of the operation that was simulated.
"Overall, I believe Lackland's portion of the exercise was satisfactory; we can meet the mission."