ESKULAP 2009 Exercise

27 April 2009

Soldiers from the Illinois Army and Air National Guard

Army and Air National Guardsmen conducted a joint military-civilian unit level information sharing exercise 20-24 April in the vicinity of the Wesola Training Area in Poland.  Members of the Illinois, Delaware, Minnesota and California Air National Guard, Illinois Army National Guard, Illinois Civilian Fire Fighters, Polish Armed Forces, Polish Fire Department, Slovakian Armed Forces and Austrian Red Cross conducted Chemical, Biological Radiological/Nuclear and Explosive (CBRNE) team familiarization scenarios.  This is the second small unit information sharing exercise involving CBRNE specialists from the Illinois National Guard and Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland.

Core objectives of the event promote information sharing regarding the proper processes and procedures involved to successfully conduct CBRNE decontamination events.  This year’s event highlighted Aero-medical Evacuation training sessions involving two C-130 aircraft from the Illinois National Guard, search and extraction events and command and medical triage training lanes. Since 1993, the Illinois National Guard and Polish Armed Forces have participated in a partnership program that provides for the sharing of ideas between two nations.  Regionally, Poland receives the most U.S. Foreign Military Financing (FMF) assistance funding and is also the sixth largest FMF recipient in the world. To date this includes over $285 million in direct FMF grants and more than $3.9 billion in FMF loans. Additionally, Poland has received more than $31 million dollars under the Combined Education Training Program (CETP) which includes: the International Military Education Training (IMET) Program; Military to Military (M2M) Program; State Partnership Program (SPP) and Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program (CTFP). Poland utilizes U.S. support to help transform and modernize the Armed Forces of the Republic Poland.

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