For a unit that hopes it will
never have to do its job, the members
of the New Jersey National
Guard’s 21st Civil Support Team
(CST) are far from lazy.
That’s because the 22 Army
and Air National Guard members
have a unique mission: to provide
no-cost support to civil authorities
at a potential domestic Chemical,
Biological, Radiological, Nuclear
and explosive threat.
“We’re a force multiplier, we’re
the first line of defense for
homeland security on the military
side of the house,” said Lt. Col.
Jerry Gagnon, Commander, 21st
CST.
“We’ll advise, assist, assess
and identify what agents are
downrange. We have the training
to call upon follow-on forces with
a reach-back capability from our
unified command suite, which is
our communication vehicle,” according
to Gagnon.
No CST can respond to a threat
without first completing a strict
validation process. The Fort Dix
based unit deployed to Fort
Leonard Wood in March to conduct
Initial Collective Lanes
Diagnostic training, a process that
will prepare them for their validation
testing in June.
“I want to make sure we give
the Governor and the Adjutant
General an active unit as soon as
we can,” said Gagnon as he
supervised the loading of the CST
vehicles onto a Mississippi Air
National Guard C-17 cargo plane
during the March exercise.
“No other unit has performed
an air movement prior to validation,” said
Air Force Maj. Jesse
Arnstein, Deputy Commander.
One of the unit’s biggest
obstacles lay in actually getting to
the school. “We had to identify the
hazardous materials in order to
develop a load plan,” said Sgt. 1st
Class Terrance Taylor, Nuclear
Biological and Chemical Recon
NCO.
“Everything we’re going to
need in the field, we’re going to
bring with us,” said Gagnon. “We
have an analytical laboratory that
we travel with so we can assess
and identify right on site about 90
percent of the chemical and
biological warfare agents that are
out there in the world.”
“We’ve worked a lot of long
hours to achieve this,” noted
Taylor. “This takes us one step closer to validation.”
"Most of the Soldiers and
Airmen who comprise the unit
come from other military occupations," observed
Gagnon. “Each
member gets between 800 and
1,800 hours of additional training
to utilize the equipment [that's
being loaded] on this aircraft right
now.”
"Now that they’ve completed
their training, they’ve got time to
put it to good use."
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