U.S. Army North participated in a June exercise intended to test its ability to respond to natural and manmade disasters.
The exercise, Ardent Sentry 2009, was part of the national exercise program designed to rehearse the capabilities of the Department of Defense and other federal and state agencies to respond to homeland defense and civil support scenarios.
With several different moving pieces in play, the command began 24-hour operations June 17 to react to notional biological and chemical events, radiological incidents and floods.
Starting as a foot and mouth disease outbreak in the Midwest, the scenario developed as an "agro terror" incident, in which someone had actually introduced the biological threat.
The scenario transitioned to an anthrax event and chemical threat. Other events included a sabotaged train derailment and a potential nuclear weapon threat.
A number of the command's working groups practiced their roles during the weeklong exercise.
For example, the Environmental Information Working Group participated in it's role to visualize and assess incidents or events for command planning and response efforts.
Maj. David Foster, the group leader, said that it is important to assess impacts on the population, infrastructure, and the environment to identify what sort of response may be required from the ARNORTH team. The G3 Engineer Operations Officer boiled it down to a simple adage: "Know the past, anticipate the future, show the way."
The Future Operations Center also brought together representatives of each staff section to identify capabilities needed for the notional response.
Maj. William Rose, G3 Plans Officer, said the group validated its processes during the intense exercise.
"Army North is ready and capable in terms of planning, coordinating, resourcing and responding to the needs of the homeland," he said. "Everyone did a great job."
Overall, the Army North staff accomplished its goal of validating or improving its processes, said command's lead training officer.
"It was a great exercise," said Col. James Larsen, G7 Assistant Chief of Staff, "We had some rust to shake off, but it was an overall success."
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