Nebraska National Guard's New Homeland Security Unit

Gov. Dave Heineman and Maj. Gen. Roger Lempke unveiled a new unit designed to help the Nebraska National Guard and state emergency management officials assist first responders in detecting contaminants and investigating scenes that have the potential to involve weapons of mass destruction.

"This unit is now ready and able to provide rapid analysis of chemical or radiological hazards, as well as the identification of biological agents in the event of a domestic attack involving weapons of mass destruction," Gov. Heineman said.

Each member of the 22-person Nebraska Guard unit has averaged nearly 550 hours of training in preparation for the unit's approval. The unit is on-call 24 hours a day and has the ability to deploy to the scene of an incident within one hour.
Unit responsibilities include helping first responders and emergency managers, including the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency, in preparing for and responding to chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear incidents. Unit members have also been trained as part of an entry team, capable of entering contaminated "Hot Zones" for reconnaissance, survey, detection and sampling missions.

Maj. Gen. Lempke said, "We took people from other areas in the Nebraska National Guard to form the nucleus of a team to organize and train to become a full Civil Support Team. In less than 18 months, the team fielded all its equipment, completed all individual and group training, passed a strenuous evaluation exercise and has been mission validated."

The 72nd Civil Support Team -- Weapons of Mass Destruction (Lincoln) was certified by The U.S. Department of Defense late last week. Nebraska learned in March 2004 that it would be one of a dozen new states receiving a specialized unit. Civil Support Teams, including several personnel from Nebraska, were part of recovery efforts following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. National Guard Civil Support Teams were also involved with the Space Shuttle Columbia debris recovery in 2003.

Lt. Col. Anita Curington, commander of the unit said, "Team members worked extremely hard to meet our Department of Defense certification requirements, and I'm proud of each and every one of them. We are prepared to be an asset to the State of Nebraska."