Captain’s Column

Over the past couple of weeks many of you received “Exercise” notices to situations we don’t ever want to experience in real life. Some of you may have been caught in traffic at the gate, or unable to drive on a certain road.

I appreciate your patience and assure you it was for good reasons.

In today’s environment, the types of emergency situations you hear of in the news have to be considered and more importantly trained for, and to ignore them would be downright foolish.

I am proud to inform you that there is a very dedicated and energetic group of Sailors, Soldiers, Airmen and civilians who make up the Security, and Fire and Emergency Services teams here on base, and they are not ignoring the threat. They are training day-in, day-out, to provide the safest place to work and live possible.

Last week the base underwent a week-long evaluation of our security and emergency response, and training programs and procedures. The evaluation culminated in a final series of exercises to include high threat situations, such as a gate runner, active shooter and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The base security training team conducted these drills for our watch-standers, putting them through complicated scenarios and assessing their abilities. Not only were they training the younger security guards they were evaluating their own training techniques to improve future drills.

I am very excited with their achievements and look forward to how we improve our capabilities in the future. Their efforts and hard work resulted in an excellent score and an assessment team finding that NASCC can effectively defend the base.

This truly has been a team effort as Army Military Police and USAF Security Force Airmen from CCAD have been incorporated into the Naval Security Forces here at NASCC. The synergy and teamwork is seamless as they work together. I am very thankful for the cooperation and very proud of their hard drive and dedication.

It can seem improbable that something would happen here in South Texas, but as you can see in the news, it only takes one individual, who takes the wrong path, to hurt others. Again, I can assure you that we have some amazing young men and women who are ready, willing and very able to defend those who live and work here. It is often during their time off that they are studying and practicing the skills needed for emergency situations.

For many folks living and working on this base, the security folks are only seen at the gates, checking IDs and inquiring about weapons. They stand the watch in the heat and the cold for 12-hour shifts, on alert for the unknown and ready to respond.

I ask everyone to remember what those Security Forces and Fire and Emergency Services are ready to do if needed, and give them a “Thanks.” I can tell you they deserve it.