FORT SILL, Okla. (Oct. 1, 2015) -- Filing into Sheridan Road Theater, Basic Combat Training Soldiers take their seats as they receive last-minute instructions before their graduation in about 30 minutes.
Families begin parading through the aisles, anxious to see their sons and daughters graduate.
Suddenly a car bomb explodes just outside the northwest corner of the theater. A theater wall collapses and a fire is rages on the roof.
About 40 Soldiers lie sprawled in the auditorium and its side entries, some in blood-soaked Army Service Uniforms, others are burned and dazed. Moaning and screaming fills the theater.
Fort Sill law enforcement, fire and medical responders begin arriving at the theater. Once the bomb site is deemed clear by police, the theater parking lot quickly transforms into a medical triage area. The garrison commander implements Force Protection Delta, and security gate guards begin inspecting vehicles entering the post.
This was the scene Sept. 23 at 9:30 a.m. as the installation began its annual postwide mass casualty exercise.
James Carney, exercise senior controller, and his evaluators judged not only the emergency responders, but also how well information exchange was managed during the two-day exercise.
The large-scale exercise involved hundreds of players, controllers and participants that tested every post agency, command and units from all five brigades here, Carney said. It also used Fort Sill's mutual aid partners, including the Lawton Fire Department, Comanche County Emergency Medical Services, Kirk's EMS and the three outside local hospitals.
"We want them to know to understand and practice their emergency action procedures," Carney said. "There is an element of first responder training, and there's the element of protecting the post and the people who live and work here."
The installation conducts one major postwide exercise annually, as well as smaller ones throughout they year, such as the foodborne illness drill in August, Carney said.
Fort Sill Fire and Emergency Services Assistant Chief of Operations Bobby Klein was the incident commander of the unified command post, which operated out of Fire Station No. 3 off Sheridan Road. He said the exercise tested his firefighters in numerous areas.
"They are using extraction training, they're using triage training, emergency medical care and firefighting training," Klein said. "It tests us on what we work on throughout the year, and lets us work with our mutual aid partners,and other organizations on post."
After the injured had been transferred to Reynolds Army Community Hospital or off post, then the investigation into the explosion. Agents from the Army Criminal Investigation Command and Soldiers from the 761st Explosive Ordnance Disposal Company scoured the bomb site for evidence.
"It becomes a very slow and deliberate process to investigate the crime scene, and recording information," Carney said.
The exercise controller said that such a bombing is unlikely, but it's within the realm of possibility and that's why the post practices such a scenario. About six month planning went into the exercise.
At a simulation cell, exercise controllers threw monkey wrenches, or injects, into the exercise that the players had to handle, Carney said. This involved distressed parents calling the post for information, as well as concerned citizens and corporations asking to find out how they could make donations.
Around noon, Strategic Communications Officer Lt. Col. J. P. Maddaloni conducted a mock press conference to answer media inquiries. He was joined by Installation Chaplain (Col.) John Morris and Capt. Heather Barton, RACH, who spoke about their respective commands' response.
Well into the exercise, Klein said agencies were working side-by-side and that things were going well at the command post.
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