ZEMIANSKE KOSTOL’ANY, Slovakia — Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defense teams from 12 NATO countries participated in the 10th annual exercise Toxic Valley in Slovakia from September 5-16.
The Slovak Republic is hosting the exercise to provide NATO alliance members with world-class training.
The exercise, conducted at the CBRN training and testing center Zemianske Kostol’any, will give fighters the opportunity to train sampling and identification of chemical warfare assets in real-world conditions.
The 773rd Civil Support Team from Kaiserslautern, Germany represented the United States at the exercise, with observers from the ECJ5-W Office EUCOM Weapons of Mass Destruction and the NATO Joint CBRN Defense Center of Excellence in Vyškov, Czech Republic. Army Colonel Michael Firmin, director of the Education, Training and Evaluation Division of the NATO Joint CBRN Defense Center of Excellence noted the importance of the exercise.
“Toxic Valley 22 – The Next Generation brings together CBRN sampling and laboratory analysis professionals from various NATO member states,” said Firmin. “This exercise enables interoperability between our NATO partners in CBRN defense operations.
“What’s unique about this exercise is how to test these war fighters against different CBRN defense scenarios using live chemical agents,” he said. “This gives them a realistic and challenging training.
“In addition, it provides these war fighters with an opportunity to exchange best practices and lessons learned from this exercise, generally improving the professionalism of these key NATO units.”
The JCBRN Defense COE is a military body of NATO and a multinational sponsored organization that provides recognized expertise and experience to the benefit of the alliance and other partners. Its activities are focused on the NATO transformation process and operational support by providing defense advice and CBRN defense support, education, training and exercises.
Each team participated in two training scenarios per day for three days and conducted operations according to the procedures described in NATO’s Allied Engineering Publication 66, Handbook for Sampling and Identification of Biological, Chemical and Radiological Agents. The training scenarios include an abandoned factory used by terrorists to make chemical warfare agents, an illegal drug lab, and an underground bunker.
“Exercise Toxic Valley is important to participating units because it gives soldiers the opportunity to gain confidence in their protective equipment and gives commanders the opportunity to ensure that their soldiers are properly trained to perform their mission in a hot zone,” he said. Slovak army colonel. Oliver Toderiška, Commander of the Slovak CBRN Corps and Exercise Director of Toxic Valley 2022. “This exercise is also important for the NATO alliance because it allows us to share our processes, in some cases improve our techniques, and least improve our capacities to cooperate in the common defense of our nations.”
“Since sampling and analysis are time-critical activities, each of the scenarios is time-bound,” Toderiška said. “You will see that each of the teams has different processes, but ideally the results will be the same.”
The Slovak military is rightly proud of their achievements as host of Exercise Toxic Valley for the 10th time, and produced a small memento for the participants to commemorate the exercise.
“Every year we come up with a new motto for the exercise,” says Toderiška. “This year’s motto, The Next Generation, represents the need for this generation’s corps of professionals to pass on our knowledge and skills to the next generation.”
Interest in the exercise from NATO member countries has steadily increased over the years, with 12 countries signing up for 2022 to exercise their SIBCRA teams.
Because the facility is not large enough to accommodate 12 teams at the same time, eight teams trained the first week and four new teams the second week.
The team from the United States took part in the second week, along with teams from Belgium, Lithuania and Slovenia.
“The ability to provide live agent training is vital to a CBRN soldier, especially in this theater,” said Lieutenant Colonel Mary Durham, commander of the 773rd Civil Support Team. “We have the opportunity to gain proficiency and improve our CBRN response skills, both from a US military and from a partnership perspective with our NATO allies.
“Usually, our CBRN soldiers receive live agent training at our premier US Chemical Defense Training Center, located in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
“They do the Chemical Defense Training Facility as young soldiers or later in their careers, but they don’t do it often and they usually can’t use the equipment that is organic for their unit.
“This opportunity here in Slovakia allows our soldiers to work with live agents using their own equipment, which is really vital to build confidence in their equipment and make sure they are comfortable with it.” using it in a contaminated environment,” she said.
The last day of the exercise was reserved for after action reports and team evaluations.
“The Slovak army has done a fantastic job in this exercise,” said Firmin, “and I want to thank them for all the great work they do every year to improve the professionalism of the CBRN defense teams in NATO.”
For more information on the US Army’s NATO Brigade, visit our website at www.usanato.army.mil.
