News

It was a night-MARE

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Zachary Cacicia
  • 436th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. --  Active shooters, hostage situations, terrorist attacks, tornados and bombings are not likely to occur at Dover AFB, but the base and its personnel must be prepared to handle any disaster, accident or emergency that may arise.

Team Dover tested its emergency response capabilities during a four day long major accident response exercise Oct. 20-23, 2015, at Dover AFB, Delaware.

The MARE is an annual exercise designed to push the base, its personnel and its emergency response readiness to the brink with a wide range of simulated emergency and disaster scenarios. These scenarios are designed to simulate possible real-world threats to the base's operational capabilities. These scenarios included simulations of an active shooter, a hostage situation, a terrorist attack, chemical spill and others.

"The overall objective was for an antiterrorism force protection MARE," said Maj. Dennis Menjivar, 436th Airlift Wing Inspector General chief of exercises. "The over-arching theme was to see if we could sustain high force protection condition's. Yes, we definitely can."

The majority of the significant events took place during the overnight hours, making the scenarios more realistic, since real-world emergencies do not always occur during duty hours with sunny weather.

"It went pretty well," said Menjivar. "We conducted 24-hour continuous operations with two main events each day, completing all of the wing's objectives."

For Lt. Col. Kevin Golart, 436th Civil Engineer Squadron commander, this was his first time working as the emergency operations center director at Dover AFB.

"Dover Air Force Base does a phenomenal job of bringing in the operations group, the maintenance group, public affairs and organizations from across the wing into one team," Golart said. "I have not seen that done as well elsewhere."

The MARE tested the response capacities of agencies across the base, from the fire department and security forces to public affairs and the civil engineers. Several off-base local and state agencies also took part in the exercise. The MARE helped these agencies optimize their responses that would occur during real-world situations.

"The team gelled very quickly," said Golart. "I was surprised at the support we received from our unit control centers and the support we received from role-players from across the wing."