July 14, 2010 — KEY EVENT

Volk Field, Wisconsin: The soldiers approached the injured victims with caution while dressed in their biological and chemical hazards suits to quickly assessed the situation in order to determine how best to help the victims of this simulated horrific crash of a train carrying yet unidentified hazardous materials with a bus full of unsuspecting passengers. These soldiers from the National Guard had been called in to help evaluate the situation, and assist first responders in evacuating and rescuing the survivors. All of this was part of “The Patriot Exercise 2010”, which brought together guardsmen from the Texas Air National Guard and the Texas Army National Guard to Volk Field, Wisconsin for this one week large-scale training exercise based on the above training scenario. These exercises helped the soldiers hone their skills as first responders to a large scale disaster by presenting them with the most realistic scenarios possible, including participants playing the role of contaminated and injured victims from a fabricated debris crash field complete with air support from Air National Guard units. “It is important to properly train our First Responders on large scale, multi-department training exercises like this one provides valuable experience that they [National Guard Units] need to be prepared for a real emergency.” stated HCI’s Program Director Martin Bailey about the exercises.