National exercise gets underway at Muscatatuck
By Staff Sgt. Brad Staggs
Indiana National Guard
A role player grieving over her husband is helped to an Army ambulance during the national emergency response exercise Vibrant Response at Muscatatuck Urban Training Center in Butlerville, Ind., on Nov. 9, 2009. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Brad Staggs)
download hi-res photo BUTLERVILLE, Ind., (11/9/09) - It takes patience to set a car on fire.
This is the first thing Staff Sgt. Michael Buckner explained as his team prepared for a post-nuclear blast exercise.
Technically, he said, it takes patience to make a car look like it's on fire when in reality, it's a controlled burn.
"I have several feet of tubing running from this wrecked truck to a propane tank that I can turn on and off," Buckner explained, a small smile forming on his face. "There is a burn pot in the engine compartment that shoots flame a good four feet if we need it to. We only had one day to set this particular venue up and I think we did a pretty good job."
Burning vehicles and garbage, lots of smoke from smoke candles and fog machines, and signs of distress written on old sheets have turned Muscatatuck Urban Training Center into the epicenter of the federal emergency response training exercise called Vibrant Response.
But in the midst of the madness is an underlying current of safety that controls every action.
U.S. Army North wanted a disaster site, which looked as real as possible, simulating a town on the edge of a nuclear detonation in the United States.
Imagine if a 10-ton nuclear device was set off in downtown Indianapolis and the surviving city was just on the outskirts of the city, such as Greenwood, Ind., is today. That is the look and feel needed for an exercise of this magnitude and Muscatatuck proved to be the perfect location.
Role players were hired and brought in solely for the Vibrant Response, which will involve more than 4,000 participants before it is over.
They were brought in to portray the survivors of the town, along with the ills that would be associated with them. Everything from water and food shortages to lawlessness will be represented during the exercise.
Once the role players are taken to their vignette - whether it be a housing complex, a jail, or any of the other venues being portrayed - they are given their assignments.
For example, a woman may play a mother who can't find her daughter, or another woman plays a distraught character, who will not leave the contaminated area until the rescuers help find her dog.
Some role players were given written instructions outlining a particular injury they suffered. North Vernon, Ind., resident Jason Bensheimer has a laminated index card attached to a string around his wrist which declares that the bomb detonation has made him deaf and given him burns.
He's looking forward to playing it up. "I've been waiting for this ever since I found out about [the exercise] from a friend of mine," Bensheimer said. "I hope being a role-player here will give me the experience to be a leader and help people if something like this ever does really happen."
On Nov. 8, a building at Muscatatuck was set up to portray a nursing home in an outlying area of Indianapolis following a nuclear blast.
Fifteen role players were assigned to the building to act as residents of the nursing home. who needed to be saved and cared for by Army medical personnel.
"We volunteered for this because we wanted to experience it and see some cool stuff," said John McGill, one of six students majoring in Homeland Security at Vincennes University who took part in the vignette. "And we wanted an MRE [Meal Ready to Eat]."
Each role player was given a different injury or affliction that the medical personnel had to attend to while removing the people from a possibly contaminated area. The role players also were coached on how to act toward the rescue personnel. The medical personnel arriving to help these victims, however, had no idea what to expect.
As a husband and wife role-playing team walked around the building appearing confused and looking for the "Bingo Bus," a medical team rolled onto the scene with only one vehicle. They quickly discovered that they needed much more.
Three more medical teams arrived to assist with the evacuation with the "injured" who remained in character until the very end.
Ambulatory patients and nursing home residents were quickly placed into military ambulances while those who couldn't walk were cared for. Bandages were put in place where needed and the medical teams tried to calm the patients and residents who were shaken by their experience of living through a nuclear blast.
But one resident could not be calmed. In her scenario, she could not be convinced that her "husband" was actually dead. In her role she believed her husband was merely unconscious and refused to let go of his body. Staff Sgt. Bryan Jimenez, a Muscatatuck Soldier playing the part of a local policeman, was impressed.
"Wow, she was good," Jimenez exclaimed. "I actually felt sorry for her and started getting mad that the medic wasn't getting her away from her husband's body."
At the end of the day, the Army medics left with a much better understanding of how to deal with people who are your neighbors and friends.
The lessons learned will, hopefully, never need to be used after a national emergency here in the United States, but these medics will be better prepared for it if it does.
Vibrant Response, which takes place from Nov. 5-12, will test federal response to a national emergency and validate our national response teams.
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