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 NEWS
 Vigilant Guard 2008 a success, served South Carolina well By Staff Sgt. Dan Heaton
 BEAUFORT, S.C. - Living along the Atlantic Coast in South Carolina means that local residents are aware that they could one day be in the path of a major hurricane. As the manager of emergency services in Beaufort County, William Winn can't do much about the weather. But he can rest easier knowing the National Guard is just a phone call away and ready to assist his local fire departments and police agencies respond to "the big one." "Over the past three days, we've learned how to better communicate, how to better respond to an emergency and to serve our local population in a time of crisis," Winn said as Vigilant Guard 2008 was winding to a close. VG08 was one of the largest disaster response training exercises in the history of the National Guard. The exercise responded to a major notional earthquake centered in Beaufort County, S.C. Over three days, April 21-23, more than 3,000 National Guard Soldiers and Airmen from more than a dozen states worked side-by-side with firefighters, police officers, Red Cross volunteers and representatives from numerous other local, state and federal agencies to rescue people "trapped" under collapsed buildings, clear rubble, airlift injured people to various hospitals and deliver food, water and other emergency supplies to survivors. The Guard even made history by landing a C-130 Hercules cargo plane at the Hilton Head Municipal Airport - which features the nation's shortest commercial runway - to simulate an emergency evacuation. Beaufort County is home to more than 140,000 people, many of who live on islands that front along the Atlantic Ocean. A hurricane is possible - as is another earthquake like the 1893 temblor that rocked this region. Such possibilities is the reason Beaufort County was more than pleased to serve as the host site of VG08, said Weston Newton, chairman of the Beaufort County Council. "You could look at the local economic benefit of having all of these Soldiers and this operation come to the Beaufort area and that certainly is a benefit," he said. "But that pales in comparison to the long-term benefit of developing the relationships and being able to test and improve our plans for what to do in an emergency situation. "We are able to measure, coordinate and fix the kinks in the system in ways that would simply not be possible in a table-top discussion exercise," Newton said. VG08, the 11th such annual exercise designed to test the National Guard's ability to work with local emergency responders, set the new gold standard in disaster training, said Maj. Gen. Steven D. Saunders, director, joint doctrine, training and force development, at National Guard Bureau headquarters. Saunders' office oversees the development of Vigilant Guard exercises. "We expect continuous improvement," the general said, standing at the Hilton Head airport, moments before the historic C-130 landing. "This exercise brings together a great number of units from different states and puts them together with the local first responders." "Watching all these people, wearing a variety of uniforms, working together, not getting in people's hair, but working cooperatively together - that's pretty powerful stuff," Saunders said. While the exercise brought together numerous military and governmental agencies, it also allowed non-governmental agencies to test their plans. Among those participating in the exercise were agencies such as the Salvation Army, the Southern Baptist Convention's Disaster Relief Team and the American Red Cross. The exercise also had an international flavor. Small military contingents from Denmark, Canada, England and Moldova were invited to observe various parts of the operation. "An exercise like this stretches and flexes our volunteers," said Debbie Szpanko, director of the Palmetto chapter of the American Red Cross, which services Beaufort and neighboring counties in southeast South Carolina. "Our volunteers have experience responding to smaller, local emergencies, such as a house fire," she said. "This helps us better prepare to be ready for a major event." In addition to Red Cross volunteers learning how best to communicate and interact with the National Guard and other agencies, Szpanko said she was pleased that during the exercise other agencies learned more about the capability of her volunteers. "We have several retired doctors and nurses who are among our volunteers," she said. "When they identified themselves at some of the scenarios, they were put to use, utilizing their medical skills. Our mission is to help in whatever way we can." At the conclusion of the exercise, the various involved parties will meet to review what went right and what needs to be improved, said Brig. Gen. Eisner, deputy adjutant general for Army in South Carolina and commander of troops for Vigilant Guard 2008. "We will be updating our plans, protocols and procedures based on what we learned this week, so that we are better able to serve the citizens of South Carolina," Eisner said. For many of the soldiers involved in the exercise, VG08 involved long days and plenty of hard work, still the troops in the field saw the value and purpose in the exercise, said Capt. Samone McNeil Chapman, Alpha Company commander of the 118th Mechanized Infantry Battalion of the South Carolina National Guard. "We are Citizen-Soldiers," Chapman said. "Missions like this puts the focus strongly on both sides of that, we are citizens using our skills as soldiers to help citizens. That's a mission that we take a great deal of pride in." The positive attitude expressed by VG08's senior leaders was echoed by one of the exercise's most junior Soldiers, Pvt. George Green, an infantryman in C Company of the 118th Mechanized Infantry Battalion based at the Florence Armory. He enlisted in the South Carolina National Guard just about a year ago and VG08 was his first major exercise. "This gives me a chance to help out, which is why I joined the Guard in the first place," Green said.
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