BUTLERVILLE — The Muscatatuck Urban Training Center and its surrounding civilian community received high praise from U.S. Army North members during the Guardian Response 19 exercise conducted at the installation during May.
The Guardian Response exercise is the largest of its kind in the United States. It is a Homeland Emergency Response Exercise designed to train and test the capability of the active Army, the Army Reserve and Army National Guard to react efficiently to man-made or natural disasters in the United States.
This is the 10th year MUTC hosted the exercise.
“This is an amazing place. We’ve been to other military sites around the country for certain types of training, and there are other sites with some of the same training features as at Muscatatuck, but nothing else has all the features in one place like Muscatatuck,” said Lt. Col Joe Junguzza, 78th Training Division, U.S. Army.
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“Muscatatuck is very unique and valuable. It has this huge area for training, plus it is centrally located. And also, the whole community has been so friendly to us from the first days we arrived here,” he added.
The Indiana National Guard created MUTC from the deserted grounds of the Muscatatuck State Hospital. The National Guard took the standing buildings, which resembled a small city, and designed an urban-like training center for use by both military and civilian agencies.
While the MUTC is under the command of the Indiana National Guard, Guardian Response is under the command of U.S. Army North, in coordination with U.S. Northern Command and the Department of Homeland Security. The Army’s 78th Training Division is the coordinating agency for the exercise.
More than 5,000 soldiers and civilians from across the nation began filing into Jennings County during April to prepare for the exercise. Individuals from 24 states were involved in the exercise.
“This training is very intense, it has to be,” Junguzza said. “The idea is to go to the limits of their capacity to plan.”
Portions of the exercise were conducted at virtual sites across the country, but the actual hands-on training in a real world environment was taking place only at MUTC, he said.
Soldiers were stationed at the Jennings County Fairgrounds and near the North Vernon Airport, as well as at MUTC before, during and after Guardian Response. An additional and related exercise, Vibrant Response, was conducted simultaneously at MUTC’s headquarters at Camp Atterbury, near Edinburgh.
The Guardian Response 19 exercise was designed to replicate a nuclear explosion disaster in a civilian community.
The exercise consisted of two portions. One was a scenario of a 20-kiloton nuclear bomb attack in Detroit, the other replicated a 10-kiloton detonation in Phoenix.
“Around 900,000 citizens would be replaced in an attack like this. No city is set-up to handle something like this alone,” said Army North Spokesman Mike Rosenburg.
During the Detroit emergency scenario May 13, Rosenburg said the exercise was designed to show different agencies how to work together in worst-case scenarios.
“What they are doing here is for everyone’s own good,” said Staff Sgt. Christopher J. Sofia of the 78th Training Division.
North Vernon Mayor Mike Ochs, present for activities on May 13, praised for the Indiana National Guard’s development of MUTC and the Army’s use of the facility.
“They are working not just to train, but to serve and protect the whole nation,” Ochs said. “I am proud we have Muscatatuck here for them. This is a phenomenal place, a real diamond for the military and they are using it well.”
