FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. — Leaders of the U.S. Army Maneuver Support Center of Excellence uncased the guidon for the U.S. Army Civil Support Training Activity during a ceremony at Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, Oct. 20, 2026.
Brig. Gen. Alexander Lovasz, MSCoE and Fort Leonard Wood commanding general, and CSTA Director David Wilcox took part in the ceremony, which marked the transfer of the CSTA from the U.S. Army Western Hemisphere Command to MSCoE under the Training and Transformation Command as part of the Army Transformation Initiative.
According to Lt. Col. Roberto Sanchez, CSTA’s chief of operations, the CSTA trains, evaluates and conducts validation exercises for technical support forces, or specialized response units, throughout U.S. Northern Command’s area of responsibility. This work supports the Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Response Enterprise, also known as the CRE.
“By direction of Headquarters, Department of the Army, CSTA provides a single Title 10 CBRN collective training capability that supports all components of the Army,” Sanchez said. “CSTA is responsible for training and evaluating both the Title 10 and Title 32 components of the CRE. This includes pre-mission assumption training, sustainment training, periodic validations and training development support.”
Units that make up the CRE are the Weapons of Mass Destruction - Civil Support Teams, CBRN Enhanced Response Force Packages, Homeland Response Forces, Defense CBRN Response Force, and the Command and Control CBRN Response Element.
Those components are “general and technical support forces tasked to respond to domestic CBRN incidents through a scalable framework of force packages supporting civil authorities,” Sanchez said.
CSTA focuses its training and evaluation of those specialized units on five primary mission areas: Mass Casualty Decontamination, Technical Decontamination, Emergency Medical Care, CBRN Reconnaissance and Surveillance, and Urban Search and Rescue.
Due to the complexity and nature of those missions, the CSTA is a critical element for the CRE units, Sanchez added.
“Technical support forces operate in hot and warm zones, and other contaminated environments, requiring specialized training in the use of commercial off‑the‑shelf equipment, and, in accordance with 29 Code of Federal Regulations, are required to possess specific skills, capabilities and equipment to perform their missions safely and effectively,” Sanchez said. “Through training and evaluation, CSTA helps provide those necessary and crucial skills and capabilities.”
CSTA history
CSTA began providing chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear training and evaluation support to Army elements as early as 1998, when the 1st and 5th Army G3 Weapons of Mass Destruction Divisions were tasked to provide support to the initial Army National Guard Rapid Assessment and Initial Detection teams, which were later transformed into the WMD Civil Support Teams. In 2004, the 1st and 5th Army G3 WMD Divisions were combined to form the Civil Support Readiness Directorate, a subordinate staff directorate under U.S. Army North. The CSRD was tasked with training and evaluating military CBRN forces against terrorist use of WMD agents in the homeland.
On April 1, 2009, HQDA established the CSTA as a separate Title 10 collective training capability available to all components of the Army, and it was assigned as a separate subordinate element of ARNORTH, the Army Service Component Command to Northern Command.
“This requirement became part of NORTHCOM’s mission to defend the homeland, and CSTA has developed as the Army’s go-to CBRN collective training and evaluation capability,” Sanchez said.
By Direction of HQDA, and as a part of the Army Transformation Initiative, U.S. Army North, U.S. Army South and Forces Command were combined to become the U.S. Army Western Hemisphere Command. As a part of that transition, CSTA was transferred from USAWHC to the Training and Transformation Command, effective Oct. 1, 2026.
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