ZipTies

If we cannot do anything effective about abusive environments, then why allow people to bring children into them in the first place?

Are we better off living in a society where suicide is criminalised or one where people of sound mind can do it as painlessly as possible?

Google the terms “placefulness” and “Drupal” together, and the top results all point to … Plone! As we move more deeply into our web site design, we are gaining a better understand of our site needs.

Placefulness: the Plone community makes frequent use of this term to describe how the system automatically retains the “location” of each new document one creates in the site. In end-user terms, the user clearly knows where he/she is within the site at all times. This makes Plone well-suited for sites with a clean content hierarchy. Contrast this with Drupal, in which new nodes have no location by default. The system only automatically assigns them a node ID number. Drupal developers use content types, menus, tags, views, and modules to create the illusion of place and hierarchical structure.

Many of our users, responsible for a particular school program, need to manage the hierarchy of article in their content area. If this process is difficult to use, it will challenge a lot of people and become an obstacle to content creation. We must also consider permissions and menus. Plone cascades editing privileges in a way that Drupal does not — if you can edit the parent, then you can also edit its children by default. Users may expect menu items to appear automatically in a hierarchical content structure.

Recognizing the need, the Drupal community has generated a number of modules that help automatically link new nodes to their location within a hierarchical content structure. Most obvious is the book module, distributed with core. Users may create child pages, and the Book Navigation feature automatically generates a book menu on the fly.

I learned that it is best to automatically display Book Navigation on whenever one is in a book. If one restricts the block’s visibility based on the URL path, then one has to specify custom URLs for all of the pages in the book or use PathAuto to automatically generate them. This quickly becomes a hassle again.

At first glance, it does not appear straightforward to mix book and non-book menu items in these menus, which could be a problem. We could create separate menus for structured content navigation and links to interactive pages (a.k.a., transactions). While that would work better within Drupal, would it make the site more or less usable to our visitors?

To further complicate matters, we want the landing page of each top-level section to show the news items for that category instead of a book page. Now we need to make the book navigation appear before we are actually in the book. This code snippet makes book navigation appear on all pages — we would have to modify it to display a navigation block to match the book one is about to enter. Another possible direction is to insert PHP code into the book landing page to manually query the database for news items related to that book. That may be more straightforward.

Good news: I just tried two new tricks (for me). I inserted PHP code into a book page to mix dynamic with static content. Drupal provided me the SQL query in the Drupal 6 View interface.

$sql = "SELECT node.nid AS nid FROM node node LEFT JOIN term_node term_node ON node.vid = term_node.vid INNER JOIN term_data term_data ON term_node.tid = term_data.tid WHERE (node.type in ('news')) AND (term_data.name = 'admission')";

}

And also used a redirect to send the user from a static page to a separate, dynamic one.

header('Location:http://ww2.catlin.edu/scripts/admission.pl');

(I know, I’m showing my novice Drupal learning curve. It’s my blog.)

We could throw in the towel and manually manage the menus. We really want the ability to post a single article to multiple places in the hierarchy, which seems to run counter to any automatic menu generation feature. However, if a user responsible for a small portion of the site needs to scroll through the entire site menu hierarchy to place their item, they will be stopped in their tracks.

Node Hierarchy appears to address our concern directly, allowing a user to specify the child relationship of a new node to an existing one. It’s unclear whether development on this module is sufficiently active to use on our primary, public web site. The Drupal 6 version is currently in alpha. I also question whether it uses a popup menu to select the parent node, which would be very awkward on a large site. Node Hierarchy is incompatible with book, which would mean that we were placing our trust in a module with less community support than Book.

I have yet to investigate breadcrumb navigation, which would also help strengthen the sense of placefulness of each node. I hope it will play well with the other hoops I am jumping through to make this work.

For classroom pages, it may make more sense to use Organic Groups. That should allow teachers to post articles, manually maintain a simple menu, and create items for other content types as we support them (image galleries, calendar, blog posts, etc.). This will also allow individuals to maintain both public and private content, which should help us both maintain visibility of classroom programs and protect the privacy of our students, teachers, and parents.

Amherst College developed their own solution, Monster Menus, to provide this functionality to their site. However, development was so extensive that they were not able to publish a module for this, despite recognizing the high levels of interest and expressing their willingness to share.

If we need to choose between Drupal and Plone, we may need to determine the core nature of our site. Is this a traditional content repository with some interactive features, or is it an interactive site with some hierarchical content? Will the interactivity be mostly one-way (collecting information from school community members), or will we really reply and produce lots of original, dynamic content ourselves? In other words, will we really have the kind of community site that Drupal was invented to provide? We don’t want to constantly swim upstream against Drupal’s core tendencies.

The ace up our sleeve is that we can set up a test site to experiment with different potential solutions before we commit to a development platform.

tags: drupal, plone, placefulness, menus, structured_content

By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class (SW) James R. Evans, USS Abraham Lincoln Public Affairs

Aviation Boatswain’s Mate (Handling) 2nd Class Leatrice Koenig guides a T-45 Goshawk assigned to Carrier Training Wing (CTW) 1 onto the No. 1 steam-powered catapult to be launched from the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72). Lincoln is conducting training and carrier qualifications. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class James R. Evans/Released)

USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN, at sea (NNS) — For the first time since 2004, USS Abraham Lincoln’s (CVN 72) flight deck served as a training ground for student pilots flying the Navy’s advanced jet training aircraft, the T-45 Goshawk, Dec. 10-13.

Student pilots assigned to Carrier Training Wing (CTW) 1 Training Squadrons (VT) 7 and 9, based in Meridian, Miss., and CTW 2 squadrons VT-21 and VT-22, based in Kingsville, Texas, flew aboard Dec. 10 for four days of initial carrier qualifications off the coast of southern California. For these new pilots, the arrested landings and catapult launches they completed aboard Lincoln are the culmination of many months of intense flight training.

“This is the first jet they’ve flown, and it’s their first time on a carrier,” said Lt. Cmdr. Mark Schadt, Chief of Naval Air Training’s (CNATRA) senior landing signal officer (LSO). “They’ve spent the last 10 months learning to fly the T-45 and before that they flew T-34s (a propeller driven trainer) for up to 10 months. This is one of the last things they’ll have to do before they go to a Fleet Replacement Squadron (FRS) and learn to fly their assigned aircraft.”

After the training wing’s arrival and early qualification flights Thursday, students gathered in Lincoln’s ready room four to critique their landings with LSOs like Schadt. Many were still visibly excited from their first “traps” and conversations were animated as student pilots reenacted their final seconds before hitting the deck.

“It’s a totally surreal experience,” said 1st Lt. David Fickle, a prior-enlisted Marine assigned to “Eagles” of VT-7, who completed his first arrested landing aboard Lincoln Thursday. “I had seen all the videos and documentaries on the military channel, but when you actually get here, it’s not like anything you perceived. Coming in, everything on the deck – the planes, the people − looks so much smaller, and then you definitely know it when you catch the wire. It’s a huge adrenaline rush.”

Fickle said that despite all the practice and instruction students receive flying carrier landing patterns and approaches at their home fields, nothing can fully prepare a pilot for the task of catching a wire on the comparatively tiny deck of a carrier while it’s in motion. In the ultra-competitive environment of naval aviation, students who had distinguished themselves flying over land found themselves, quite literally, in the same boat with everyone else.

“You develop a certain pride in competition, and I was in the upper echelon flying “the ball” at the field,” said Fickle. “But for me and a lot of others, this was a big punch in the guts. Today I was boltering like crazy, and I don’t know if it was from the lens being a lot farther in front of me or seeing all the people and planes parked out there, but it was a very humbling experience.”

Despite the sweat-drenched, white-knuckle landings, Shadt and Fickle both described launching from a steam-powered catapult for the first time as a more memorable experience.

“Most of the students are so focused flying the approach and getting their numbers right that they barely remember the landings, but for the launch they’re just kind of along for the ride,” said Schadt. “If you’ve ever been to Magic Mountain at Six Flags in California, they have a Superman ride there. It’s a lot like the Superman ride.”

The T-45 Goshawk is the U.S. Navy’s version of the British Aerospace Hawk. Using the same airframe, it incorporates aspects of the F/A-18’s avionics suite and the ability to land on an aircraft carrier to better prepare pilots to fly the Navy’s premier fighter aircraft. One pilot who trained aboard Lincoln has experience in both the Hawk and the Goshawk.

Lt. Stephen Collins is an exchange pilot who has flown the Hawk for the British Royal Navy and is now training in the Goshawk with the “Tigers” of VT-9. Collins and four student pilots from India flew aboard Lincoln to train, as they have for the entire curriculum, alongside their U.S. counterparts. His goal is to qualify to the same standard as U.S. pilots so that he can fly U.S. F/A-18E/F Super Hornets as part of his exchange program.

“The U.S. and the Royal Navy have worked together very closely on the Joint Strike Fighter program,” said Collins. “The ultimate aim is for us to get some experience flying a jet with very similar capabilities to that one. It’s a good trade, the U.S. gets a pilot out of it and the Royal Navy gets the experience.”
While student pilots of Carrier Training Wings 1 and 2 worked to overcome their inexperience, for Lincoln’s flight deck and air traffic control personnel, the challenge was putting their own experience to work and avoiding complacency.

“For most of the people up there right now, having just completed a 7-month deployment, it’s was almost business as usual,” said Lt. Cory Pope, a catapult and arresting gear officer and Lincoln’s V-5 division officer. “We just had to be a little extra cautious and remember that these folks had never done this before. We wanted to keep them safe too.”

Nuance Communications, a leading provider of speech and imaging solutions, today announced several tips aimed at helping people achieve at least one New Year’s resolution for 2009: getting organized, both at home and in the office. “Getting more organized” is consistently one of the top ten New Year’s resolutions, according to a recent survey of over 300,000 people conducted by 10millionresolutions.com.

The time and cost of organizing paper clutter can be surprisingly quick and affordable, especially when compared to the cost associated with folders, boxes, containers and storage space needed to store paper. Nuance’s award-winning scanning solutions - including PaperPort, OmniPage and PDF Converter Professional - have been used by millions to turn piles of paper into organized documents on their PC, where they can be searched, stored and easily shared using email and the Web.

The National Association of Professional Organizers estimates that most people spend 55 minutes a day looking for things they know they own but can’t find. According to a recent report by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Americans spend on average more than a day and more than $200 collecting, calculating and compiling numbers for their tax returns. With the IRS now accepting electronic copies of receipts, people can scan tax documents, organize them on their PC using products like PaperPort, and easily access them whenever they are needed.

There are simple steps that people can take to get organized in 2009:

1) Put your Scanner to Work - With nearly every All-in-One printer outfitted with a scanner, millions of people have the ability to turn paper into organized digital documents. New advances in software make scanning easier and more powerful than ever.

2) Save a Day a Month - By simply adding PaperPort to their PC, people can scan as easily as they can make a copy, creating electronic paper copies that can be easily organized. Better still, PaperPort includes optical character recognition (OCR) technology that makes scanned documents as searchable as email and Microsoft Office documents. With a simple keyword or phrase users can find any scanned document in seconds.

3) Save Another Day a Month - It can take hours to manually re-create existing paper documents using a word processor, but just seconds to scan paper into a fully-formatted Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint file. Using Nuance OmniPage can help by automatically turning existing paper and PDF into documents that people can edit, saving considerable time and effort.

4) Go Green with Electronic Paper - Email has helped many of us avoid the unnecessary use of paper, but we still print when we can share ‘electronic paper.’ Nearly everyone is familiar with the PDF format, with millions of the same-as-paper documents on the Web and shared as email attachments. Nuance PDF Converter Professional lets people create their own PDF copies of documents, letting them share documents that are universally viewed, almost always are smaller in file size, and more secure than sending the source document. People can also print Web pages to PDF on their PC - such as travel confirmations, online purchase receipts and more - making it easy to replace printing to paper with printing to electronic paper.

Copies.com

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By Gerry J. Gilmore, American Forces Press Service

The Pentagon’s three new rapid-response task forces will assist civil authorities during possible terrorist attacks or natural disasters, but they won’t perform law-enforcement missions, a senior Defense Department official said here yesterday.
Some people have surfaced concerns that active-duty soldiers, who make up the core of the first 4,700-member joint task force established in early October, could be used to perform police functions, which would be in violation of the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, Paul McHale, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and Americas’ security affairs, told American Forces Press Service and Pentagon Channel reporters.

The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits active-duty military members from conducting domestic law-enforcement operations.

“None of that is true,” McHale said of public assertions that active-duty troops assigned to the task force will perform police duties. Instead, he said, the rapid-response units are “task-organized to deal with the technical and very challenging requirements associated with a contaminated environment.”

The task force cited in public discussion, McHale said, was established Oct. 1 and is built around a core of active-duty soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, based at Fort Stewart, Ga. This task force, he said, falls under the control of U.S. Northern Command’s Joint Force Land Component Command, U.S. Army North, in San Antonio.

Each task force will be capable of performing tasks such as medical response, decontamination, technical rescue, patient evacuation, and communications and logistics support, including air and land transportation assets for transport of supplies, people and equipment, according to U.S. Army North documents.

Plans are to stand up two more new joint task forces in 2010 and 2011, respectively, McHale said. These units, he said, will comprise mostly reserve-component personnel, mainly National Guard troops.

The new task forces would be ordered into action by the president following requests for disaster-relief assistance from state governors, McHale said.

In the event of civil disturbances and some other types of emergencies, McHale said, active U.S. military units could be ordered by the president to assist civil authorities establish order as part of the Garden Plot domestic security plan.

“There are [active] military units that are prepared, under law, to ensure constitutional rights and the enforcement of federal law, under the Insurrection Act, to be deployed for a domestic security mission,” McHale said.

The last time Garden Plot was activated, McHale said, was to restore order during the 1992 Los Angeles riots that followed the trial and acquittal of some local police officers who had been charged with the beating of Rodney King. Federal troops also were employed during the 1950s and 1960s, he said, to ensure the civil rights of African-American citizens.

By Gerry J. Gilmore, American Forces Press Service

Pentagon officials have established a new rapid-response joint task force and plan to create two more in coming years to bolster assistance to civil authorities following potential chemical, biological or nuclear attacks or natural disasters, a senior U.S. official said here yesterday.

The new units will team with other federal agencies in support of local responders following chemical, biological or nuclear terror attacks on the homeland or during natural disasters, Paul McHale, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and Americas’ security affairs, told American Forces Press Service and Pentagon Channel reporters.

The establishment of the new units “builds upon a decade of improving [Defense Department] capabilities to deal with a domestic terrorist attack involving a weapon of mass destruction,” McHale said.

The first new 4,700-member task force was assigned to a component of U.S. Northern Command on Oct. 1, McHale said. The new unit, he said, is built around a core of active-duty soldiers from the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team based at Fort Stewart, Ga. This task force, he said, falls under the control of Northcom’s Joint Force Land Component Command, U.S. Army North, in San Antonio.

Plans are to stand up the other two new joint task forces in 2010 and 2011, respectively, McHale said. These units, he said, mostly will comprise reserve component personnel from all the military services.

Each task force will be capable of performing tasks such as medical response, decontamination, technical rescue, patient evacuation, and communications and logistics support, to include air and land transportation assets for transport of supplies, people and equipment, according to U.S. Army North documents.

The task forces would be ordered into action by the president, McHale said, following requests for disaster-relief assistance from state governors.

The new units, he emphasized, do not conduct law-enforcement missions. In the event of civil disturbances and some other types of national emergencies, he said, other designated U.S. military units could be ordered by the president to help civil authorities establish order as part of the Garden Plot domestic security plan.

The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States prompted U.S. officials to consider whether existing National Guard-staffed civil support teams could provide enough resources to support civil authorities during multiple catastrophic events, McHale said.

McHale said 9/11 also “was the genesis for the creation of U.S. Northern Command.” Northcom, he said, is responsible for homeland defense of the continental U.S. and Alaska, while U.S. Pacific Command is responsible for Hawaii. Air Force Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr. commands Northcom as well as North American Aerospace Defense Command, which are co-located at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, Colo.

National Guard-staffed civil support teams were developed through a Pentagon initiative dating to the mid-1990s. Today, there are 53 civil support teams distributed across the United States, McHale said. These 22-member units, he said, are trained to test for chemical, biological or nuclear contamination in the event of a weapons-of-mass-destruction-attack on the United States.

Additionally, Marine Corps-operated emergency-response units that specialize in relief operations are available during chemical, biological and nuclear attacks, he said.

By Army Staff Sgt. Michael J. Carden, American Forces Press Service

For only the second time since 9/11, a U.S. Army National Guard division headquarters will deploy to command active-duty forces in combat.

The Defense Department and Minnesota National Guard today announced that more than 1,000 soldiers from the 34th “Red Bull” Infantry Division will mobilize for training in February for a yearlong deployment to Iraq that will begin in April.

“Minnesotans have grown accustomed to our National Guard forces leaving their families, employers, farms and communities in order to carry out vital missions in harm’s way,” Army Maj. Gen. Larry W. Shellito, the state’s adjutant general, said during a press conference today at the Rosemont National Guard Armory in Rosemont, Minn.

More than 17,000 citizen-soldiers and -airmen from Minnesota units have deployed since 9/11, but this particular mission is different, Shellito said.

“The scope of this mission is unprecedented for the modern Minnesota National Guard,” he said.

The division headquarters will provide leadership, command and control, and in-depth staff analysis for more than 16,000 U.S., Salvadoran, Lithuanian and Romanian coalition troops in the southern third of the country.

The “Red Bulls” also will have direct partnership with more than 40,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen across eight of Iraq’s 18 provinces, all of which have been transitioned to provincial Iraqi control. Coalition troops in the region are employed in a supporting role to Iraqi security forces, Shellito said.

“The images of U.S. troops fighting at close quarters in intense street battles are images of the past,” he said. “In order to make this transition happen we now need troops who are not only proficient in military skills, but are adept in assisting civil authorities as well.”

Security responsibilities in the region “rest with professional and capable Iraqi security forces,” Army Maj. Gen. Richard C. Nash, commander of the 34th Infantry Division, said during the press conference. He added that the days of “U.S.-only operations” in Iraq are mostly over.

“Our mission will be grounded with our relationship with the Iraqis,” Nash said. “We will conduct all operations by, with and through Iraqi security forces. The measure of success for the 34th [Infantry] Division will be to what extent the government of Iraq is capable of providing for its own population.”

The division primarily will focus on working with embedded provincial reconstruction teams from the U.S. State Department to improve infrastructure and essential services as well as help the local governments stimulate the economy and job opportunities.

“This is where our citizen-soldiers will distinguish themselves,” Nash said, citing that his unit includes soldiers with years of experience in business, agriculture, law enforcement, law, medicine and other city services. “We are committed to applying our civilian- and military-acquired skills to enabling Iraqi institutions to provide for their own people.”

The division’s headquarters, special troops battalion, division band and 34th Military Police Company will receive pre-deployment training at Fort Lewis, Wash. In Iraq, they will relieve the 10th Mountain Division headquarters as Multinational Division Center.

WASHINGTON (NNS) — The Navy will christen its newest attack submarine, New Mexico Dec. 13 during a ceremony at Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, Newport News, Va.

U.S. Rep. Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico will deliver the ceremony’s principal address.

Designated SSN 779, New Mexico is named in recognition of the people of the ‘Land of Enchantment’. The submarine began construction under a unique teaming arrangement between Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding and General Dynamics Electric Boat in 2004. The battleship New Mexico (BB-40) (1918-1946), the only other ship named after the 47th state, earned six battle stars for World War II service, which included providing shore bombardment support for landings in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands, and at Guam, Tinian, Saipan, the Philippines and Okinawa.

The sixth Virginia-class submarine, New Mexico is built to excel in anti-submarine warfare; anti-ship warfare; strike warfare; special operations; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; irregular warfare; battle group support; and mine warfare missions . By doing so, New Mexico will directly enable five of the six Navy Maritime Strategy core capabilities – sea control, power projection, forward presence, maritime security, and deterrence.

Cmdr. Mark A. Prokopius, a native of Seven Hills, Ohio, is the prospective commanding officer and will lead a crew of approximately 134 officers and enlisted personnel.

The 7,800-ton New Mexico is 377-feet long, has a 34-foot beam, and will be able to dive to depths of greater than 800 feet and operate at speeds in excess of 25 knots submerged.

By Donna Miles, American Forces Press Service

NAVAL SUPPORT FACILITY INDIAN HEAD, Md. - The first active-duty unit dedicated to supporting U.S. civilian authorities in the event of a nuclear, biological or chemical attack is wrapping up three days of intensive training its members hope they never have to apply in real life.

Soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team are here getting hands-on training in skills they would depend on to provide humanitarian support during a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive incident, known here as a CBRNE.

The “Rock of the Marne” division, which returned to Fort Stewart, Ga., in early spring from its third deployment to Iraq, was designated Oct. 1 as part of the CBRNE Consequence Management Force. The force includes various military assets assigned to U.S. Northern Command that could be called on to respond to a natural or manmade disaster.

The division will conduct the mission for a year, rotating its six divisions through escalating readiness levels, explained Army Col. Roger Cloutier, who commands the 1st Brigade “Raiders.” After that, the mission will pass to other Army brigade combat teams.

If first responders found themselves short of manpower or equipment in a disaster, they could tap into the team through U.S. Northern Command and Joint Task Force Civil Support.

“I can’t think of a more noble mission than saving American lives at home,” Cloutier said, citing the “phenomenal responsibility” it entails. “Every single soldier and Marine here takes this very personally. You can see it on the faces of my soldiers.”

About 200 of Cloutier’s soldiers came here this week to learn the ropes in a realistic setting from the experts: the Marine Corps Chemical Biological Incident Response Force. The Marines stood up the unit in 1996 in response to a subway sarin gas attack in Tokyo. Today, it remains the only active-duty element that trains daily in CBRNE consequence management.

The training realism began before the soldiers ever reached the Indian Head facility. They received a no-notice alert at 4:30 a.m. Dec. 8 and deployed just over 24 hours later from Hunter Army Airfield with four aircraft, about 15 vehicles and other equipment and gear.

Exercises at The Marines’ Raymond M. Downey Sr. Responder Training Facility gave the soldiers insight into the conditions and challenges they likely would face if called to help rescue victims and provide temporary life support during a disaster.

“This is as realistic as I imagine it can get,” said Army Lt. Col. Joel Hamilton as two of his soldiers burst from a smoke-filled building carrying the mannequin they had searched through the dark to locate. “My soldiers are being stressed with some very realistic scenarios.”

Hamilton, who commands the 1st Battalion, 41st Field Artillery, looked on as the soldiers navigated under and through “collapsed” structures and walls and felt their way through dark, smoke-filled buildings and confined spaces to search for survivors.

Working in buddy teams, they inched through spaces as tight as two feet by two feet, wearing blacked-out gas masks that offered zero visibility. They yelled directions to the man behind them, their voices rising over rap music the Marines had cranked up to further confuse the situation.

As the soldiers moved, each maintained at least three points of contact on the floors and walls at all times to keep from getting disoriented. “This is all by feel and communication,” Hamilton said.

At another station, the soldiers practiced the techniques to lift seemingly unmovable 17,000-pound concrete beams to reach people trapped beneath. Meanwhile, other soldiers tried their hand at using the “jaws of life” and other equipment to free passengers “trapped” in their vehicles.

The Marines focused on safety throughout the training, emphasizing how quickly first responders can become victims themselves. “We don’t want to be the rescuers who need rescuing,” said Staff Sgt. Ray Johnstone, an M109 Palladin crew chief.

“It’s all about teamwork,” he said. “Teamwork is what gets the job done safely and effectively. And it’s what we’re doing here.”

Cloutier credited teamwork the brigade built during 15 months in Iraq’s Anbar province with giving its soldiers a leg up on their new mission. Junior leaders developed critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, and soldiers learned how to interact with other coalition forces as well as Iraqi military and local government leaders.

And just as they understood in Iraq that they were supporting Iraqi army and police forces, they understand that if called to respond to a CBRNE incident, they’ll support state and local authorities, Cloutier said.

“We understand our role, and the fact that we are not in charge,” he said. “We are here to help and to find out, ‘What do you need?’

The biggest strength his unit would bring to the mission, Cloutier said, is “4,000 soldiers with a can-do attitude who are here to help.”

That can-do attitude was evident yesterday as “hoo-ahs” rang through the training area and soldiers exhibited ear-to-ear smiles as they moved between training stations.

“I’m loving every minute of this!” exclaimed Army Spc. David Johnson as he prepared to enter the “smokehouse” facility. “This is something like the coolest training I’ve had in three years in the Army. And it’s all teamwork.”

Army Spc. David Draper called helping remove the doors and roof of a beat-up 1991 Cutlass to free a “trapped” passenger “a really good time.” But after growing up in the Midwest, and seeing the devastation from floods, tornadoes and ice storms, he said the significance of the CBRNE mission goes deeper.

“I’m pretty excited that we have the utilities to go out and help save people,” he said. “This is more of the stuff I joined the Army for.”

With 10 years in the Army, and a long string of deployments under his belt — to Kosovo, Afghanistan and three to Iraq – Johnstone called the CBRNE mission a welcome opportunity to serve his own countrymen.

“We’re ecstatic about it,” he said of the mission. “This is something new and different. It’s about actively saving lives,” he said. “Hopefully we never have to get the call to do it. But if we get that call, we are ready.”