[Peace-discuss] The Troops are Coming Home...

[E. Wayne Johnson]

They showed us at the RNC what the future could be like.



Andrea Rice wrote:
> I'm sorry if this has already been posted. This list is so busy 
> lately, I haven't even been able to keep up with the topics as I lurk. 
> Below is an article from Army Times, that soldiers will be coming to 
> US soil on an active mission. I have been told (not at all sure if it 
> is accurate) that this is around 6000-8000 soldiers. I am really 
> concerned about this.
>  
> http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/
>  
>
>
>     Brigade homeland tours start Oct. 1
>
>
> 3rd Infantry’s 1st BCT trains for a new dwell-time mission. Helping 
> ‘people at home’ may become a permanent part of the active Army
> By Gina Cavallaro 
> <mailto:gcavallaro at atpco.com?subject=Question%20from%20ArmyTimes.com%20reader> 
> - Staff writer
> Posted : Monday Sep 8, 2008 6:15:06 EDT
> The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of 
> the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping 
> restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.
> Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.
> Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the 
> day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of 
> Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or 
> manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.
> It is not the first time an active-duty unit has been tapped to help 
> at home. In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed 
> hell in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were 
> pulled from various posts and mobilized to those areas.
> But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been 
> given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established 
> in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense 
> efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.
> After 1st BCT finishes its dwell-time mission, expectations are that 
> another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that 
> the mission will be a permanent one.
> “Right now, the response force requirement will be an enduring 
> mission. How the [Defense Department] chooses to source that and 
> whether or not they continue to assign them to NorthCom, that could 
> change in the future,” said Army Col. Louis Vogler, chief of NorthCom 
> future operations. “Now, the plan is to assign a force every year.”
> The command is at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., 
> but the soldiers with 1st BCT, who returned in April after 15 months 
> in Iraq, will operate out of their home post at Fort Stewart, Ga., 
> where they’ll be able to go to school, spend time with their families 
> and train for their new homeland mission as well as the 
> counterinsurgency mission in the war zones.
> Stop-loss will not be in effect, so soldiers will be able to leave the 
> Army or move to new assignments during the mission, and the 
> operational tempo will be variable.
> Don’t look for any extra time off, though. The at-home mission does 
> not take the place of scheduled combat-zone deployments and will take 
> place during the so-called dwell time a unit gets to reset and 
> regenerate after a deployment.
> The 1st of the 3rd is still scheduled to deploy to either Iraq or 
> Afghanistan in early 2010, which means the soldiers will have been 
> home a minimum of 20 months by the time they ship out.
> In the meantime, they’ll learn new skills, use some of the ones they 
> acquired in the war zone and more than likely will not be shot at 
> while doing any of it.
> They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or 
> to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning 
> and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear 
> or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.
> Training for homeland scenarios has already begun at Fort Stewart and 
> includes specialty tasks such as knowing how to use the “jaws of life” 
> to extract a person from a mangled vehicle; extra medical training for 
> a CBRNE incident; and working with U.S. Forestry Service experts on 
> how to go in with chainsaws and cut and clear trees to clear a road or 
> area.
> The 1st BCT’s soldiers also will learn how to use “the first ever 
> nonlethal package that the Army has fielded,” 1st BCT commander Col. 
> Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment 
> and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous 
> individuals without killing them.
> “It’s a new modular package of nonlethal capabilities that they’re 
> fielding. They’ve been using pieces of it in Iraq, but this is the 
> first time that these modules were consolidated and this package 
> fielded, and because of this mission we’re undertaking we were the 
> first to get it.”
> The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike 
> strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and 
> batons; and, beanbag bullets.
> “I was the first guy in the brigade to get Tasered,” said Cloutier, 
> describing the experience as “your worst muscle cramp ever — times 10 
> throughout your whole body.
> “I’m not a small guy, I weigh 230 pounds ... it put me on my knees in 
> seconds.”
> The brigade will not change its name, but the force will be known for 
> the next year as a CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force, or 
> CCMRF (pronounced “sea-smurf”).
> “I can’t think of a more noble mission than this,” said Cloutier, who 
> took command in July. “We’ve been all over the world during this time 
> of conflict, but now our mission is to take care of citizens at home 
> ... and depending on where an event occurred, you’re going home to 
> take care of your home town, your loved ones.”
> While soldiers’ combat training is applicable, he said, some nuances 
> don’t apply.
> “If we go in, we’re going in to help American citizens on American 
> soil, to save lives, provide critical life support, help clear debris, 
> restore normalcy and support whatever local agencies need us to do, so 
> it’s kind of a different role,” said Cloutier, who, as the division 
> operations officer on the last rotation, learned of the homeland 
> mission a few months ago while they were still in Iraq.
> Some brigade elements will be on call around the clock, during which 
> time they’ll do their regular marksmanship, gunnery and other 
> deployment training. That’s because the unit will continue to train 
> and reset for the next deployment, even as it serves in its CCMRF mission.
> Should personnel be needed at an earthquake in California, for 
> example, all or part of the brigade could be scrambled there, 
> depending on the extent of the need and the specialties involved.
>
>
>       Other branches included
>
> The active Army’s new dwell-time mission is part of a NorthCom and DOD 
> response package.
> Active-duty soldiers will be part of a force that includes elements 
> from other military branches and dedicated National Guard Weapons of 
> Mass Destruction-Civil Support Teams.
> A final mission rehearsal exercise is scheduled for mid-September at 
> Fort Stewart and will be run by Joint Task Force Civil Support, a unit 
> based out of Fort Monroe, Va., that will coordinate and evaluate the 
> interservice event.
> In addition to 1st BCT, other Army units will take part in the 
> two-week training exercise, including elements of the 1st Medical 
> Brigade out of Fort Hood, Texas, and the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade 
> from Fort Bragg, N.C.
> There also will be Air Force engineer and medical units, the Marine 
> Corps Chemical, Biological Initial Reaction Force, a Navy weather team 
> and members of the Defense Logistics Agency and the Defense Threat 
> Reduction Agency.
> One of the things Vogler said they’ll be looking at is communications 
> capabilities between the services.
> “It is a concern, and we’re trying to check that and one of the ways 
> we do that is by having these sorts of exercises. Leading up to this, 
> we are going to rehearse and set up some of the communications systems 
> to make sure we have interoperability,” he said.
> “I don’t know what America’s overall plan is — I just know that 24 
> hours a day, seven days a week, there are soldiers, sailors, airmen 
> and Marines that are standing by to come and help if they’re called,” 
> Cloutier said. “It makes me feel good as an American to know that my 
> country has dedicated a force to come in and help the people at home.”
>
>
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