FY05 Annual Report Final - STATES - The National Guard

The 1st Civil Support Team (CST) is a highly specialized unit
made up of 22 full-time AGR personnel, the only full-time
operational unit in the Massachusetts National Guard.
The CST’s mission is to deploy at the request of civil authorities
to an incident to: assess a known or suspected nuclear, biological,
chemical or radiological event using agent identification, plume
modeling, and reach-back to expert agencies; advise the incident
commander on the appropriate actions to take regarding medical
treatment of casualties and mitigation of the hazard; and facilitate
the incident commander’s request for additional state and federal
assets to help save lives, prevent human suffering and mitigate
property damage.
Training on chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and highexplosive
devices is usually conducted with outside agencies
ranging from local to major metropolitan fire departments, such
as Boston, Worcester and Manchester; the Massachusetts District
Hazardous Materials Teams; and the Southeast New Hampshire
Hazardous Materials Mutual Aid District.
The CST conducts regular joint civil-military training with several
federal agencies, including the ATF, FBI, DEA, EPA and the
Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA).
The 1st CST has well-established relationships with area local
emergency planning committees, the Massachusetts State Police,
Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and the
Departments of Public Health and Emergency Management
Agencies for all six New England States.
The Civil-Military Innovative Readiness Training (CMIRT)
program builds upon the National Guard’s traditional role as a
community-based organization, assisting local communities in
addressing civic needs by providing support and services to eligible
organizations; primarily in the areas of general engineering,
healthcare services and transportation.
While some CMIRT projects are continuing, many requests have
been put on hold following the events of Sept. 11, 2001, due to
the commitment of our Soldiers and Airmen to ensuring public
safety by participating in real world operations relating to
homeland defense.
State Partnership Program
The National Guard State Partnership Program was established in
1993 in response to a radically different political-military situation
following the collapse of communism and the disintegration of
the Soviet Union.
The objectives of the program are to: foster open market economies
and help develop stability; project and represent the United States’
humanitarian values; assist with the development of democratic
institutions; and demonstrate military support to civilian
authorities.
The partnership between Massachusetts and Paraguay was
established in 2000. The Massachusetts National Guard’s visits
to Paraguay this year included maintenance seminars and
assessments of vehicles and aircraft, civil disturbance and civilian
control instruction, and medical assessments to burn victims from
a 2004 fire.
During the fiscal year there was also a conference conducted with
Massachusetts State Senator and Guard member Maj. Scott Brown
in June. The purpose of his visit was to promote positive civilmilitary
relations and provide a forum for discussions on national
defense and military institutions in a democracy.
All missions conducted this year helped in the development of the
ongoing relationship between the Paraguayan Government and
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Strategic Plans and Policy
Strategic Plans and Policy continued to implement the transition
to a combined Massachusetts Air and Army National Guard Joint
Force Headquarters during fiscal year 2005.
Efforts to implement the transition during the year included
establishing a joint mission-essential task list for the headquarters,
implementing a joint training plan and providing joint operations
training for key personnel.
Photo by Sgt. June Norton, Massachusetts National Guard Public Affairs
2005 Annual Report 23