NATO Forces Sharpen Live-Agent Skills

CANADIAN FORCES BASE SUFFIELD, Alberta, Canada - NATO forces recently honed their skills during live-agent chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear (CBRN) training at Exercise Precise Response on Canadian Forces Base Suffield in Alberta, Canada.

CBRN troops from Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States trained together at the Suffield Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) site.

The Chemical Weapons Convention Team from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons also participated in the exercise.

American Soldiers from the 20th Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosives (CBRNE) Command's 46th Chemical Company (Technical Escort), 10th Chemical Company (Hazard Response) and 1st Area Medical Laboratory represented the U.S. Army in the multinational exercise.

The Fort Bliss, Texas-based 46th Chemical Company (Technical Escort) and Fort Carson, Colorado-based 10th Chemical Company (Hazard Response) are part of the 22nd Chemical Battalion, 48th Chemical Brigade and 20th CBRNE Command, the U.S. Department of Defense's premier deployable and multifunctional CBRNE command.

Soldiers and Army civilians from the 20th CBRNE Command deploy from 19 bases in 16 states to confront and defeat the world's most dangerous hazards in support of joint, interagency and multinational operations.

Chief Warrant Officer 2 Steven K. Cutlip, the assistant team leader of a CBRNE Response Team in the 46th Chemical Company, said the exercise forged stronger bonds with NATO allies and allowed junior Soldiers to expand their perspective during full profile CBRN mission.

"Precise Response 2024 really helped open our minds to more approaches when conducting Sensitive Site Assessments and Exploitations, sampling operations and decontamination operations," said Cutlip. "Other nations allowed U.S. Soldiers to observe their training and this enabled us to add or remove some tactics when executing our mission essential tasks."

Cutlip said his team took advantage of the expertise at Canadian Forces Base Suffield.

"The complexity of the targets, space to have equipment preparation, being collocated with NATO allies, having subject matter experts and scientists on ground to answer those hard questions made the Canadian Forces Base Suffield the ideal location for the training exercise," said Cutlip, a native of Bastrop, Texas.

The Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland-based 1st Area Medical Laboratory is assigned to the 44th Medical Brigade and 20th CBRNE Command.

The 1st Area Medical Laboratory deploys worldwide to perform surveillance, analytical laboratory testing and health hazards assessments of environmental, occupational, endemic disease and CBRN threats to protect U.S. and allied troops and support counter Weapons of Mass Destruction missions.

Sgt. Chantia Dennis, a Medical Laboratory Specialist, performed laboratory identification during the annual exercise.

Dennis said training with live agents provided a new perspective on the importance of her mission enabling and lifesaving mission.

"Unpackaging chemical agent samples from a diverse set of transport systems was challenging and unexpected," said Dennis. "They were all different."

Maj. Suzanne E. Mate, the chief of the Chemical Threat Assessment section at the 1st Area Medical Laboratory, said the exercise gave her Soldiers the opportunity to validate their skills.

"As a leader, seeing the growth in confidence and competence of the Soldiers by the end of the exercise and receiving validation of their expertise by our DRDC cadre was the highlight of the exercise," said Mate. "The Soldiers' impressed me and that was a privilege."

A graduate of George Washington University, Mate completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Health.

Mate added that Precise Response helped to prepare her team for NATO deployments.

"Precise Response was tough, challenging and realistic training. The Precise Response exercise design simulated real-world deployment preparation and execution for CBRNE mission with integration into a NATO operational workflow," said Mate. "We will work with these NATO partners downrange if deployed to a European theater."

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