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Mar-24-2007 17:50printcomments

Oregon Civil Air Patrol Prepares for Terrorist Response Training

The exercise will utilize a state headquarters Incident Command Post located at the Aurora State Airport.

Civil Air Patrol airplane
The Civil Air Patrol utilizes a fleet of over 500 single engined aircraft, such as this Cessna 182, to conduct it's nationwide mission of air search and rescue, homeland security, emergency services and aerospace education

(PORTLAND, Ore.) - The Oregon Wing of the Civil Air Patrol, in coordination with the United States Air Force and the Department of Homeland Security, will be participating in a week long six state simulated terrorist training and evaluation exercise starting next weekend. The exercise, based on a simulated terrorist attack somewhere in the western United States, will utilize multiple bases of operations throughout the state where 6 Oregon CAP aircraft are assigned. The exercise will utilize a state headquarters Incident Command Post located at the Aurora State Airport.

"The CAP has seen a return to it's historical roots since the September 11th terrorist attack in New York" relates Lt Col Thomas Traver, public information officer for the Oregon CAP. "When we were founded in WWII, one of our main duties was what we now call Homeland Defense. Since the end of that war we had evolved into the largest air search and rescue organization in the world with over 535 aircraft assigned to our wings in each state." He said. "But since 9/11 we have our returned to conducting homeland security operations in addition to our overall mission of air search and rescue, aerospace education and emergency Services." said Traver

The scope of the exercise, which includes each of the six states in the CAP's Pacific Region, Oregon, Washington, California, Hawaii, Alaska and Nevada, will involve a variety of simulated terrorist incidents in each state and will be used to evaluate the ability of CAP to respond to forecasted requests for assistance from state and Federal agencies responding to the incidents. " We will be using our aircraft to conduct a variety of activities including aerial reconnaissance, utilizing our Satellite Digital Imaging System and portions of our nation wide communications network." Said Traver.

The exercise will begin on the Friday the 30th of March with major activity that weekend and have continuing operations conducted through the first week in April. The CAP will not only be utilizing current skills and capabilities, but will also be training new team members and exploring new technologies and techniques to fine tune their response capabilities.

The Civil Air Patrol is the civilian, volunteer auxiliary of the United States Air Force and conducts over 95% of all air search and rescue operations under the direction of the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center located at Tyndall AFB, Florida.

This results in saving 100 lives on average per year nationally. The Cap also conducts aerial reconnaissance for homeland security, Disaster relief and damage assessment during disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, transport for time-sensitive medical materials and counter-narcotic missions.

The CAP has more than 56,000 members, including 27,000 cadets ages 12-21 in eight geographic regions, 52 wings, 1,700 and units in all. The CAP has it's national headquarters at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., with 100 support staff, world's largest fleet (535) of single-engine, piston aircraft, the nation's most extensive communications network and 1,000 emergency services vehicles

For more information on CAP, please visit our national website at www.cap.gov or the Oregon Wing website at orwg.cap.gov




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Crap March 27, 2007 4:16 pm (Pacific time)

That is what this terrorist mania is.....crap. We attack our own homeland and have mostly women live in a state of fear because they fall for this stuff more than men. Men know not to trust other men when it comes to power and policeing.

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