March 15, 2017 –
The 7th Mission Support Command’s 773rd Civil Support Team hosted a training team with expert Chemical Biological Radiological and Nuclear personnel from the Special Programs Division, Dugway Proving Ground and Edgewood Chemical Biological Center Dugway Campus, Feb. 20-24, 2017.
A microbiologist and a chemist covering the Chemical and Biological agent instruction were part of the training team.
“[The] Special Programs Division was onsite to provide an MTT for Biological Warfare Agents and Chemical Warfare Agents (BWA/CWA),” said Sgt. 1st Class Ramon Stewart, operations noncommissioned officer in charge, 773rd CST. “SPD provided a Biologist and Chemist that conducted blocks of instruction on history of agents, precursors for processes, and common indicators for development of agents. The culminating event focused on technical skills gained regarding Chemical and Biological laboratory processes.”
The 773rd CST key training takeaways are, “enhanced technical skills, identification abilities, and awareness of CBRN emerging threats,” Stewart added.
“Special Programs Division, Dugway Proving Ground is here to provide CWABWA response training that focuses on signatures, characteristics, precursors, detection, sampling and presumptive identification of unknown threat materials,” said Jaromy Jessop, Program Manager, Special Programs Division, U.S. Army, Dugway Proving Ground.
This was the first time SPD DPG conducted training in Germany with the 773rd, according to Stewart.
“We intend to make this an annual training opportunity,” Stewart said.
The SPD DPG provides key sustainment training that greatly increases readiness of 773rd CST to execute its mission essential tasks, added Jessop.
The SPD DPG provides similar support to all 57 National Guard WMD CST teams CONUS and OCONUS, 2ID in Korea and to numerous first responder agencies, OGAs, and other international partners, said Jessop.
773rd is always in pursuit of advanced training, said Sgt. 1st Class Adrian J. Sherfield, assistant operations/training NCO, 773rd CST, 7th MSC.
“This is just one of many groups we reach out to for better understanding of our job,” he said. “Dugway is a proven source of knowledge for CSTs throughout the nation.”
Knowing your precursors is a key piece of knowledge for unit members and was reinforced by the SPD DPG training exercise, Sherfield said.
“Knowing what key ingredients are used to make certain Chemical/Biological Warfare agents & explosives are mandatory if you want to be as safe as you can be in the Hot Zone,” Sherfield added.