Readiness challenge prepares Airmen for the worst

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Joel Mease
  • 7th Bomb Wing Public Affairs
DYESS AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  A crack of light blinds everyone, and a distinct mushroom cloud appears in the distance. Three-hours is all a five-man team has to figure out what to do and give an answer to leadership.

While the scenario described above is just an exercise, it's something that is taken very seriously by a team of Dyess Airmen competing to be the best in this year's Chemical, Biological, Readiness, Nuclear and Explosive Challenge. The competition challenges a team of Airmen from bioenvironmental engineering and emergency management to solve five different scenarios and one tabletop exercise over a span of four days. While the team competes, inspectors from Air Combat Command monitor their choices and rate them on how well they do, said Capt. Thai Le, 7th Aero-Medical Dental Squadron Bioenvironmental Engineering flight commander.

"The challenge is designed to make the scenarios as real as possible," said Capt. Le. "Everything is done in real time, and they have to handle the situation as if it is really happening. So depending on the scenarios they may have to suit up in (CBRNE protective suits)."

The challenges can be very complex, but it allows the team members to improve their skill sets, Capt. Le said.

"Over the past four months Bio and EM have been practicing for this challenge," he said. "These practices help improve their communications skills, recommendation time and allow them to quickly identify unknowns and quantify them back to leadership."

Master Sgt. Jeremy Chumbley, 7th AMDS Bioenvironmental Engineering flight chief, believes the competition is important for the young Airmen to participate in.

"It's very important to practice these scenarios as the EM and Bio community are responsible for monitoring all CBRNE events,"

Sergeant Chumbley said. "There a lot of factors for them consider for them to determine the extent of the hazard, protective equipment needed, and whether to recommend sheltering in place or evacuating to leadership."

One of the team leader's participating in the exercise found the challenge to be valuable experience for the team.

"Any time we are able to exercise helps us work out kinks we might have had and build on our experiences," said 1st Lt. Megean O'Kane. "It also reminds us of aspects we may not always think about, and it really hits home how much we need to exercise with other responders so we know what they bring to the table and what needs they have."

Overall she said her team found the challenge not as bad as they expected, but offered them a fairly challenging week of contingency scenarios.

If the team succeeds at the ACC level they will compete for best in the Air Force in the CBRNE challenge at Brooks City Base, Texas, in March.