Timelines February 2005

Timelines
February 2005
February 3, 2005 - FAA extends time for JPG comment

The Federal Aviation Administration has extended until Feb. 28 the comment period on a military proposal to greatly expand the airspace associated with the Indiana National Guard’s bombing range at the former Jefferson Proving Ground.

The deadline originally was today. More than 100 comments have been submitted, the FAA said Thursday in announcing the new deadline.

The military also is proposing new Military Operations Areas (MOAs) connected with Camp Atterbury. The deadline for those comments also was changed to Feb. 28.

February 8, 2005 - Indiana Guardsman charged with killing Iraqi citizen

An Indiana National Guardsman who received a Purple Heart for wounds sustained in combat has been charged in the death of an Iraqi citizen, the Army said Tuesday.

Cpl. Dustin Berg, 21, of Ferdinand, Ind., is scheduled for a hearing Thursday at Fort Knox, Ky. He also faces a charge of false swearing and the wearing of an unauthorized award, according to the Fort Knox public affairs office.

The hearing is an Article 32 hearing, which is similar to a grand jury proceeding in civilian courts. The purpose is to determine whether the case will proceed to a court martial.

The alleged incident occurred in November 2003 near Nippur, which is south of Baghdad, at the time Berg was wounded, said Gini Sinclair, a Fort Knox public affairs officer. Fort Knox would not release any details related to the incident.

Berg's mother, Mary Lee Berg, of Ferdinand, was quoted in The Herald newspaper of Jasper, Ind., on Nov. 24, 2003, as saying her son had been shot the day before in the abdomen and had undergone minor surgery.

Reached at her home Tuesday by The Associated Press, Mary Lee Berg would not comment on the case, saying only that her son had returned to duty in Iraq after the shooting.

Berg received a Purple Heart during a ceremony Feb. 19, 2004, at Camp Atterbury in Indiana. A Purple Heart is awarded to a soldier wounded by the enemy.

The Indiana National Guard on Tuesday would not release the citation describing why the Purple Heart was awarded.

Berg was a member of the 1st Battalion, 152nd Infantry Regiment, based in Jasper, Ind., when it mobilized in January 2003 for the Iraq war and returned home in February 2004.

He has since been brought on active duty and assigned to Fort Knox. He was charged in the case on Jan. 13, Sinclair said.

Sinclair said an attorney has been appointed for Berg, but she could not release the attorney's name.

Capt. Lisa Kopczynski, spokeswoman for the Indiana National Guard, referred all questions about the case to Fort Knox. (KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press)

February 18, 2005 - Operation Hoosier Guardian

Soldiers of B Company, 1-152 Infantry Regiment, Indiana Army National Guard, perform tactical movements at the scene of a simulated hostage crisis.
Soldiers of B Company, 1-152 Infantry Regiment, Indiana Army National Guard, perform tactical movements at the scene of a simulated hostage crisis. (Photo by Sgt. Lesley Newport)
  
BUTLERVILLE, Ind. - Travelers on the stretch of highway 50 between Interstate 65 and Butlerville noticed a distinct increase in traffic during the first weekend in February. The type of vehicles was undoubtedly a sign of things to come as more than 50 HMVEEs, 2˝- ton trucks and several bus-loads of National Guard Soldiers made their way to the newly designated Muscatatuck Urban Training Center in southern Indiana.

The Soldiers and Indiana National Guard Airmen mobilized to respond to a mock civil disturbance at Muscatatuck. Along with state police, local law and emergency response agencies and the State Emergency Management Agency, the Indiana National Guard participated in Operation Hoosier Guardian. The periodic event, held since shortly after 9/11, is a state exercise to train and evaluate agencies’ abilities to coordinate a joint response to emergency situations.

SEMA and the Indiana National Guard develop new and relevant scenarios for the responders, providing them with reality-driven training exercises.

Maj. David Freeland, Indiana National Guard Assistant State Training Officer, described the process as challenging. The most recent scenarios were designed around a fictitious conference of all fifty state governors.

“It’s a great opportunity to get civilian and military authorities together, open lines of communication. It presents an opportunity to learn what assets are available throughout the state,” said Freeland.

Freeland said a simulated hostage situation was a prime example. “The state police were working on getting a phone or some other form of communication to the hostage-holder without exposing any of their troopers to the terrorist’s line-of-fire.”

A solution was quickly decided on when Task Force One, a federal emergency management asset that specializes in search and rescue, offered a remote control robot to drag the phone and line to the terrorist to facilitate negotiations.

During the exercise, Indiana National Guard Soldiers provided security. Soldiers of the 1-152 Infantry Regiment were deployed to the scene from Camp Atterbury Joint Maneuver Training Center, forty-five miles northwest of Muscatatuck.

The 1-152 will serve as the state’s Serious Incident Response Force after validating at Operation Hoosier Guardian, taking over for the 293rd Infantry. The SIRF is responsible for deploying ten percent of its force within four hours and a full force within 24 hours.

The first wave arrived by Black Hawk helicopters from Camp Atterbury and provided security until the convoy made the ninety-minute trip to Muscatatuck.

“I haven’t been to Muscatatuck, so we just grabbed a map, briefed the convoy and headed out,” said convoy commander Lt. Ninsling. “The route definitely added to the mission and was good training for our drivers.”

The convoy was met by members of the 293rd who served as civilian role-players on the scene, posing as protesters, media and terrorists. The 293rd was validated and has served as the SIRF since October of 2004. It became apparent that the 293rd wanted to make sure they gave the most realistic training as possible.

Sergeant Major Charles Cox, Readiness NCO for the 293rd briefed the role-players on their missions. “They took it serious; they wanted to give the 1-152 a good training event. I told them ‘These guys are going to be on our left or right, so make it realistic as possible,’” said Cox.

Both the 1-152 and the 293rd were mobilized for the first rotation of Operation Iraqi Freedom and scores of Soldiers from both units are combat veterans.

Lt. Col. Tim Thombleson, commander of the 1-152, explained the mission was to provide support to civilian authority, establish security for the first responders and restore order to ensure a safe environment for the public.

He and his Soldiers were also impressed with the new facility. “The training opportunities here are incredible,” said Thombleson. “The array of one, two and three story buildings and road structure can be used to practice a security task with law enforcement like we are doing here today or practice military operations on urban terrain as training for combat.”

The state recently moved the event to the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center, a state development center scheduled for transfer to the Indiana National Guard in July. The facility was slated for destruction in 2005, but was salvaged as a proposed training site for military and civilian agencies that operate in urban environments.

Lt. Col. Kenneth McCallister, Muscatatuck Site Manager, is overseeing the development of the training center. With nearly seventy structures, including a power plant, hospital and school, McCallister says the site has potential for offering far more than occasional weekend-long training opportunities.

“Plans are in place to conduct training with the Department of Defense and regional civilian agencies in 2005 and 2006,” said McCallister. “This is a unique training venue and you won’t find anything like this anywhere in the U.S.”

Protests, WMD attacks and hostage situations continued well into the night for the 1-152, until the exercise ended sometime after midnight. Maj. Freeland gave them high marks.

“Obviously when you have a unit that has recently returned from deployment, the quality of leadership is going to reflect that. The performance of the Soldiers reflects that,” said Freeland. “We would hope that we would never have to call them for this kind of mission, but if we do need them, it’s good to know what we can expect.”  (National Guard Bureau News, By Sgt. Lesley Newport)

February 23, 2005 - New Crane partnership formed

Crane Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center has joined with The Indiana Counter-Terrorism and Security Council (CTASC), Indiana University and Purdue University and signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) for the development, application and advancement of technologies designed for homeland security or military use, according to an announcement made Monday by Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman.

"The protection of 6.2 million Hoosiers is the chief priority of state government. Combining the resources of Crane, Purdue, IU and CTASC will help us better achieve that goal," said Skillman, chair of CTASC. "This agreement will push Indiana to the forefront in the development of security-related technologies. This partnership highlights Crane's importance, not only to Indiana, but also to the nation."

CTASC, the state's liaison to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, will benefit from the agreement through the creation of a public safety technology evaluation system and training opportunities. In addition, the CRADA enables CTASC to advance its goal of protecting Hoosiers by spurring the development of a homeland security industry within Indiana, bringing those technologies closer to home.

"It just made sense to tap the intellectual capital in our own backyard to help us further our homeland security strategies," said Earl Morgan, CTASC director. "The potential outcomes from the CRADA create a win-win situation for the state. The technologies evaluated and created will help us attain an even better level of preparedness and position Indiana to become a player in a growing homeland security industry."

The CRADA, which expires in three years unless extended, brings together Crane's extensive knowledge and expertise in anti-terrorism and force protection. These capabilities include physical security, night vision/electro-optics, chemical-biological detection, small arms, radar systems and expeditionary warfare.

Greene County Economic Development Corporation Director Charley Dibble says the announcement sets up a unique three-way cooperative for homeland security training in southern Indiana with NSWC Crane, Camp Atterbury near Columbus, and the former Muscatatuck State Development Center grounds near Seymour.

Alok Chaturvedi, director of the Purdue Homeland Security Institute, said the arrangement is needed so a wide range of experts and practitioners can better share information about training, tactics, and emerging technologies such as innovative sensor networks designed to detect weapons of mass destruction.

"The idea is to form a united front so that we can all benefit from each other's specialized knowledge, creating courses and programs in the process," said Chaturvedi, an associate professor in the Krannert School of Management at Purdue.

Helping the state meet its economic development goals is a major priority for Indiana University, according to Michael A. McRobbie, IU Vice President for Research and Information Technology.

"Indiana University enthusiastically looks forward to working with Crane towards developing locally based homeland security enterprises," McRobbie said. "IU is performing cutting edge research in both the life sciences and information technology arenas. We have state-of-the-art laboratories and supercomputers. All of these assets can be brought to bear on the problems that must be solved to protect our country from 21st Century security threats."  (By Nick Schneider, STAFF WRITER, Linton Daily Citizen)

February 23, 2005 - City withdraws objections to airspace plan

The Indiana Air National Guard has made enough changes in its proposal for airspace near Madison’s municipal airport that Mayor Al Huntington and aviation board president Dick Goodman are withdrawing their objections.

Both had said the airspace plans as proposed could hamper economic development by discouraging air traffic for business and tourism, and could deter companies planning to move to the Madison area but not wanting to have to be hampered by the military flights. The changes the National Guard agreed to satisfy those concerns, Huntington and Goodman said.

Huntington said he still is not convinced that there will be any economic benefit for Madison and Jefferson County.

The size of the airspace the Air National Guard wants to use has been reduced slightly, Goodman said yesterday. The most important change, he said, is that the Guard agreed to not fly low-level training missions 500 feet off the ground near the airport when the ceiling, or lowest cloud level, is 3,000 feet or lower. This will allow private aircraft to fly using instruments, and has been what Goodman has sought since the airspace plans became known.

An agreement on changes to the plans were worked out over about a month and were made final Friday at a meeting of representatives of the Air National Guard and of Madison, North Vernon, Columbus and Seymour, Huntington and Goodman said. Goodman was Madison’s representative.

The changes began taking shape after Gen. R. Martin Umbarger, the adjutant general of Indiana who commands all branches of National Guard in the state, and six of his officers met in Madison in December with Huntington, Goodman and Rep. Billy Bright.

The Air National Guard will submit the changes to the Federal Aviation Administration, which governs airspace and will have the final say. The deadline for submitting comments to the FAA about the military airspace is Monday, Feb. 28.

The four new military operations areas, or MOAs, closest to Madison would extend from about 35 miles southwest of Jefferson Range at the former Jefferson Proving Ground to about nine miles north of it, and would be about 10 miles wide. Four additional MOAs also are proposed around Camp Atterbury.

Part of the agreement is that less of the airspace would be used for flying as low as 500 feet off the ground, Goodman said.

The airspaces would be used primarily by aircraft involved in training at the former Muscatatuck State Developmental Center, where a homeland security site is to open to train civilian and military troops in urban warfare. The military will be working on coordinating different kinds of aircraft that have trained separately but would be working together in support of ground troops if there was a terrorist attack.

“Their training has been not unlike teaching someone to play an instrument,” Goodman said. “Now they are trying to have an orchestra put on a concert.”

The amount of use of the airspace is unchanged, Goodman said. There would be 1,600 sorties a year, with each aircraft counting as a sortie, so if four planes flew together, that would be four sorties, he said. Typically, the flights in the airspace would last 20 minutes, but he said people might see planes in holding patterns waiting for information about where their target is.

Goodman and Huntington praised Brig. Gen. Richard H. Clevenger and Maj. Kenith Stone for their work on the agreement.

“I can’t speak highly enough...about how hard they have worked to craft this solution...something that works for all the communities,” Goodman said.

Huntington said there might be economic development later.

“I don’t see a great deal of jobs being created for us,” Huntington said. But he said he was encouraged after talking Friday to state Rep. Bill Ruppel, chairman of the House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee when he was in Madison for a town hall meeting.

“He said in the next few years they expect there may be companies that do business with the government...to possibly open manufacturing or at least service facilities,” he said.

Huntington said he suggested to Ruppel that a gate at Jefferson Proving Ground that is at Butlerville, where Muscatatuck is located, be considered as a way for the two sites to do things together. For example, he said, driving troops through JPG to Butlerville would provide “real-life scenery” as part of their training.

“He said in the future JPG could see more usage,” Huntington said.

Gov. Mitch Daniels released a statement yesterday thanking the people who worked out the agreement but providing no details about it. His statement is dated Jan. 25.  (By: Peggy Vlerebome, Courier Staff Writer)