Instructors from the United States Northern Command taught a emergency operations course to troops from the Army National Guard, Air National Guard and New York Guard (State Defense Force). They course focused on the latest techniques in Domestic Emergency Management Operations. It dove into the latest support capabilities the military can provide State and Local authorities in the event of an emergency.

The troops reviewed previous emergency events and analyzed each so they can better respond to future emergencies. New York Guard Officer Candidate Russ Ebersole commented that the training gave him “a much bigger understanding of the global picture beyond New York State from how we interact with the National Guard Bureau to how domestic ops are executed across the country.”

The United States Northern Command is one of eleven unified combat commands whos mission is to provide military support to state and local authorities throughout the United States. They were setup in 2002 to ensure that authorities had the personnel necessary to respond to terrorist or natural disaster emergencies.

NY Guard personnel learn domestic ops planning from Northern Command team

Photo By Spc. Jorge Garcia | New York Army National Guard Soldiers from the 53rd Troop Command work through a case… read more

CAMP SMITH TRAINING SITE , NY, UNITED STATES

09.14.2022

Story by Spc. Jorge Garcia

New York National Guard

CAMP SMITH TRAINING SITE, New York– Thirty-four members of the New York Army and Air National Guard and the New York Guard learned the latest techniques in domestic operations planning from a mobile training team from U.S. Northern Command, at Camp Smith Training Site Sept. 10-11.

The Joint Staff Training Course instructors used case studies from National Guard responses to emergencies across the country to illustrate the best ways to apply the military’s joint operations procedures to domestic missions.

“We take the best practices we learned from many different states and bring them to the courses we teach,’ said Scott Nelson, the Homeland Defense Resiliency Training Branch the deputy branch chief.

The instructors opened up discussions with a curriculum that used case studies from past emergency operations. They displayed examples through a PowerPoint presentation on how National Guard organizations across different states coordinated joint operations.

Northern Command is tasked providing military support for state and local governments during domestic emergencies in the United States.

One of the case studies used in the class, was a 2014 mudslide in Washington Oso , Washington that killed 43 people and destroyed 49 homes, becoming the deadliest mudslide in U.S. History.

Army Captain Keith Bermudez said doing homework on the mudslide allowed him to see military intelligence in a new light.

“We looked at how the state responded compared to how the National Guard responded. In that case, the National Guard wasn’t called in until three to four days after the mudslide happened,” Bermudez said.

“As someone who works in intelligence with no experience conducting domestic operations, this class was really useful because there are a lot of differences between doing joint domestic and overseas operations.”

New York Guard Officer Candidate Russ Ebersole said the course was very informative and that the information was incredibly useful.

“I think (this course) is preparing me to be a better leader in the New York Guard,” Ebersole said. “It gave me a much bigger understanding of the global picture beyond New York State from how we interact with the National Guard Bureau to how domestic ops are executed across the country.”

During the joint planning process, or JPP for short, most of the doctrine used to create defensive strategies stemmed from the military decision-making process the Army uses, Nelson explained.

As a result, teaching the process to other components, like the Air National Guard, means teaching some of the terminologies to Airmen.
“We teach the JPP going through Army terminologies for the other components with our main focus being mission analysis, which is the most important piece of the JPP, because if you don’t understand the mission, and you don’t understand the operational environment, you’re gonna fail,” Nelson said.

Nelson added that there are 54 ways to develop a mission strategy based on the intelligence gathered from all 54 National Guard organizations across the Nation.

For that reason, aspects like geography, state culture, and leadership play a role in developing strategies for domestic defense, he said.

“One example is 9/11 and how it changed how we viewed homeland defense,” said Maj. Russell Bouillion, one of the instructors.

“We want to be able to take what we learned from the [New York National Guard] during that crisis and go to another state tell them, ‘New York did it this way–that method might help you,” he said.

Ideally, by cross-referencing the best practices used within each state, the efficiency and effectiveness of the country’s homeland defense increases, Bouillion added.

“There is military doctrine we must follow in order to understand the foundation of the planning process. From there, you can build your plan and your standard operating procedures,” Bouillion said.

“Your SOPs and your plans will be catered to what your operational experiences have been like,” he said.