June 6, 2017
When Hard Work Meets Reality
CAMP ATTERBURY, Ind. —
Working at a headquarters is, more often than not, about planning. Planning for logistics of troops, the equipment they might take with them or of training they might need for the mission. Headquarter planners rarely get to see what’s happening in the field. Instead, they are glued to their computers, ready for updates, or are in meetings to coordinate with the different divisions. If a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) event were to happen, Joint Task Force Civil Support (JTF-CS) would direct more than 5,000 troops from all over the U.S. In terms of planning, that’s an incredible number of diverse people to move, not to mention the assets and lodging requirements included. And that’s simply moving the troops from one location to another. The real challenge comes when we begin directing the rescue and decontamination process. With that in mind, it’s easy to understand why, during an exercise like Vibrant Response 17 (VR17) that simulates such an event, we might get caught up in only seeing the warehouse where we are working 13, 14, sometimes 15 hours a day. What is happening in the outside world becomes reduced to Mission Assignment Tasking Orders and Operation Orders.