You have to agree, this is not business as usual, bold added below.
3rd Infantry’s 1st Brigade trains for a new dwell-time mission. Helping ‘people at home’ may become a permanent part of the active Army
By Gina Cavallaro / Staff writer Army Times / originally posted : Monday Sep 8, 2008
The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore
essential services and escorting supply convoys.
Now they’re training for the same mission - with a twist - at home.
Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command,
as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.
Yes troops were deployed during Katrina but that was on a temporary basis.
But this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002
to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities....
They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos
in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.
And they have all kinds of cool toys they are getting...
The package includes equipment to stand up a hasty road block; spike strips for slowing, stopping or controlling traffic; shields and batons; and,
beanbag bullets.
“I was the first guy in the brigade to get Tasered,” said Cloutier, describing the experience as “your worst muscle cramp ever - times 10
throughout your whole body.
“I’m not a small guy, I weigh 230 pounds … it put me on my knees in seconds.”
And of course they get the cutest, most harmless name you could think of..
The brigade will not change its name, but the force will be known for the next year as a CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force, or CCMRF
(pronounced “sea-smurf”).
And before you go dismissing the Army Times report and think this is one small brigade, you should first know,
The active Army’s new dwell-time mission is part of a NorthCom and DOD response package.
Active-duty soldiers will be part of a force that includes elements from other military branches and dedicated National Guard Weapons of Mass
Destruction-Civil Support Teams.
In addition to 1st BCT, other Army units will take part in the two-week training exercise, including elements of the 1st Medical Brigade out of Fort
Hood, Texas, and the 82nd Combat Aviation Brigade from Fort Bragg, N.C.
There also will be Air Force engineer and medical units, the Marine Corps Chemical, Biological Initial Reaction Force, a Navy weather team and members
of the Defense Logistics Agency and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
Our troops - our sons and daughters, husbands and wives - have all been used by this administration to further an agenda in the sandbox which was not
about Homeland Security or even security for Iraq. Now they are placing them here at home, where, if they were ordered to put down their own
citizens, I see them taking an about face, and putting down the leaders whom they are tired of following.
It would be wonderful to have troops helping in natural disasters, my fear is for the man-made variety disaster or even civil unrest that may
naturally occur as the depth of fraud and greed that took our economy to this juncture is revealed.
The role of the troops must remain to protect America from disaster, not to protect rulers from the unruly masses their actions have awakened.
These troops are not coming home for R&R, they will be on active duty assignment in the North American theater of operations. There is a difference.
It is hard to have blind faith in this administration's ability to make good judgment decisions when ordering mission and tactics for this
operational force. And even harder to fathom the position they will put our troops in if they are not very careful about what functions they order
them to carry out.
Peace
Edit: there is a difference between being panic stricken - and being vigilant. When a change of this magnitude in military operations happens, and an
entire country - the United States - becomes an active theater of operations - someone ought to notice AND ask questions.
[edit on 9-10-2008 by DancedWithWolves]