Training, Exercises & The Real Thing – Salute to Boston First Responders

By Major Van Harl USAF Ret

Boston Marathon First Responders
Boston Marathon First Responders
AmmoLand Gun News
AmmoLand Gun News

Wisconsin –-(Ammoland.com)-  As a young Air Force Security Police Lieutenant I was stationed on a Strategic Air Command (SAC) base. On a regular basis SAC would send out a team of inspectors to evaluate how well prepared my home base and its leadership was to perform the assigned flying mission.

They also inspected all the support activities that went on, on the ground to assist the flying side of the house.

The Air Force is controlled by pilots and pilots do nothing without a checklist. They are obsessed with checklists. The one constant about the military is that everyone will change. In a typical three year period either you will be reassigned to a new base or your supervisor will or the person you supervise will separate, facilitating a new Airman’s arrival on base.

In the mind of the military no one is irreplaceable and allegedly any Airman who has been trained to a specific level of knowledge can move in, take your position and get the job done without a glitch, well maybe.

When the SAC inspectors arrive they not only want to inspect how you will perform your AF job, they want to see your checklists to make sure they are the newest, latest update version and signed off on by the current commander. The inspectors will ask an Airman for his checklist and then start questioning that Airman on what is in the checklist. Then the inspectors will hold a disaster exercise and grade the cops, fire fighters, emergency medical personal, the disaster response personal and the base safety folks. The inspectors want to see just how well all the different AF first responder career fields perform their assigned checklist tasks.

If you follow the checklist to the number, the inspectors love you but if you do step 6 before step 5 on the checklist you may have just fail a major command evaluation.

One inspection day we knew there was going to be an in-flight emergency exercise with all players to perform, however only hours before the exercise there was a real in-flight emergency. Fire, cops and medics all moved rapidly to the flight line to handle a real-world emergency. Everyone already knew their checklist procedures and correctly responded accordingly. The emergency was handled no one was killed or even injured and we all went back to normal work mode. Even though we got it 100% correct handling a real world emergency the SAC inspectors still made us do it all again a few hours later under their exercise criteria.

There was a time in this country when a new fireman or cop was handed some gear and told to go to work. No real training was available and the professionalism of those public servants showed. Now there are fire and police academies. There are state standards that must be attained by all new policemen and fire fighters before they can even be hired.

If you watched any of the video footage of the Boston bombing the one thing that stuck out the most was the immediate professional reaction by the Boston area first responders. No one had a checklist out--they got into high gear and made it happen.

As there is no place for life’s failures in the military anymore (we are too technically advanced) there is no place for the untrained (but with good intentions) first responders in the civilian world. Just putting on a uniform does not mean you know how to do the job and if lives are at stake you do not need the untrained responding and getting in the way.

Boston had its act together and there is no doubt that lives were saved because of training. Telling a uniformed provider either civilian or military “thank you for your service” is getting rather passé.

If you really want to thank them ask them about their training. Thank them for enduring months on end at a police or fire academy. Thank them for taking their EMT course at their own expense or enduring four years getting a degree in a public service career field that means a life time of shift work.

There will come that day when a first responder will be all that stands between you and great bodily harm. You want to be living in the US when that crisis day happens. We have the best standards, equipment and training in the world and if your first responders are half as good as the men & women of Boston are, you will most likely get to go home alive at the end of your crisis.

Major Van Harl USAF Ret
[email protected]

About Major Van Harl USAF Ret.:
Major Van E. Harl USAF Ret. , is a career Police Officer in the U.S. Air Force was born in Burlington, Iowa, USA, in 1955. He was the Deputy Chief of police at two Air Force Bases and the Commander of Law Enforcement Operations at another. Now retired, these days he enjoys camping, traveling, volunteering with the Girl Scouts and writing. [email protected]

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Dan Wiberg

I am guessing the Major is typical in his belief. If it was an “exercise”, WHY DID THE MEDIA PROMOTE IT AS REAL FOR SO MANY DAYS? Why are there confirmed videos of the older Tsarnaev being loaded healthy and naked into a police vehicle and then horrendously dad a few hours later? Why was young Tsarnaev wound free inside the boat and then wounded outside the boat when he did not have a weapon? Why has the FBI been complicit in 25 of the last 27 “terrorist” incidents by providing money equipment and supplies to the “terrorists”? Come on… Read more »

robertsgt40

Guess someone didn’t like my posted link about the Boston setup. Ck “Daily Bail” or “Before It’s New” for details.

robertsgt40

What stuck out most to me after the bombing, was the actors for a staged event.