CFE-DMHA, DTRA partner to improve combating WMD planning
07.18.2014
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii – The Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency partnered to provide nearly two dozen military leaders with the Joint Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD) Planning Course July 14 – 17.
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA) JCPC course provides students with the tools needed to incorporate CWMD planning into larger theater operation plans.
“The overall objective is to teach the combatant command staff how to execute combating WMD planning,” said Lt. Cmdr. Manuel Biascoechea, JCPC course director for DTRA. “We do that by giving them the basics on the national guidance, the activities and tasks of combatting WMD, and the planning process.”
The five-person DTRA team travelled from Washington, D.C. to facilitate the JCPC course, the first time in United States Pacific Command’s area of responsibility.
“This course enhances [chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN)] officers and noncommissioned officers, and ultimately [Pacific Command’s] ability to be organized, trained, and equipped to prevent, prepare for and response to a CBRN event,” said Lloyd Puckett, CBRN analyst for CFE-DMHA.
Attendees of the course represented U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps components from U.S. Pacific Command.
When they are done, “[the participants] should be able to go back to their offices and integrate [another layer of] CWMD planning into other, larger-scale campaigns – contingency and Theater Campaign Plans that require CWMD,” said Biascoechea. “With the course, they will know where to look for things, what information is important and how to integrate that information into a plans.”
Lloyd Puckett, chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear analyst for the Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance gives opening remarks during the Joint Combating Weapons of Mass (CWMD) Destruction Planning Course held on Ford Island, Hawaii July 14 – 17. The course was a collaboration between CFE-DMHA and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to provide additional CWMD planning to service members from several U.S. Pacific Command components.
Lt. Col. Rene Ramos-Rivera, an instructor for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, discusses levels of integration during the Joint Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction Planning Course at the Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance headquarters building on Ford Island, Hawaii July 16.