A new training ground was on order for this year’s Red Dragon Exercise, which took place at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. Red Dragon 24 included elements from 76th Operational Response Command, 910th Airlift Wing, Youngstown, Ohio Air Force Reserve and the Florida National Guard’s 44th Civil Support Team in addition to units from 84th Training Command. Along with Dugway Proving Ground staff, this team diligently planned and executed top-tier Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear (CBRN) training for Army Reserve Soldiers.
As an exercise, Red Dragon was an opportunity to improve unit tasks including base defense, equipment decontamination, and chemical agent identification and exploitation, and individual Soldier tasks. These unit-critical tasks are evaluated, and Soldiers are provided an opportunity to improve on their performance. This exercise continues to prepare reserve units to support active component units to which they may be tasked to support in the future.
Companies from 455th Chemical Brigade and 209th Regional Support Group trained in an austere environment on their mission essential tasks and conducted chemical operations and command and control—all key elements in preparing reserve Soldiers to integrate with active component maneuver units when called to action.
209th Regional Support Group established the initial Forward Operating Base and conducted Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration (RSOI) in addition to their mission of base defense. Col. Dru Roberts, 209th Regional Support Group Commander said, “This was 18 months of planning, but the RSOI process was seamless. What I envisioned it to be was exactly how it was executed” said
455th Chemical Brigade units conducted multiple mission sets including hazardous agent detection, convoy operations, and aircraft decontamination. Each of the missions required planning at the brigade and battalion level with the companies executing their assigned missions. For Col. Dominic Dinh, 455th Chemical Brigade Commander, repetition based CBRN training was of high focus for Soldiers to build confidence in and command of their equipment. It's important because they're going through the detection process for different types of chemicals that are out there that pose a danger,” he said. “The Soldiers learned and trained on the ways to detect it and the equipment that they would use to be able to detect that.”
Red Dragon was a concentrated focus on both unit and individual abilities. The units developed their abilities working together conducting reconnaissance lanes, decontamination lanes, and convoy operations lanes. A new training focus was added for the decontamination of aircraft as well.
Overall, Red Dragon 24 was an immense success. “For the training aspect, this is in my top two,” said Sgt. Julius Gamboa, a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear Specialist (74D) assigned to 370th Chemical Company. The careful planning and confident execution of the exercise provided CBRN warriors with high quality training and assessment of their abilities, and the Soldiers of 76th Operational Response Command are looking forward to more complex and engaging training moving forward.