{"id":15560,"date":"2023-06-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=15560"},"modified":"2023-06-17T06:47:53","modified_gmt":"2023-06-17T06:47:53","slug":"utah-guard-ghana-train-together-at-african-lion-exercise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=15560","title":{"rendered":"Utah Guard, Ghana Train Together at African Lion Exercise"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Utah National Guard Soldiers from the Homeland Response Force \u2013 Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Task Force trained with Ghana Armed Forces as part of Exercise African Lion 2023 May 31-June 14.
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TAMALE, Ghana – Utah National Guard Soldiers from the Homeland Response Force \u2013 Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Task Force traveled overseas to train with Ghana Armed Forces as part of Exercise African Lion 2023 May 31-June 14.<\/p>\n

Utah Soldiers trained on how to respond in a CBRN environment and learned firefighting techniques from their GAF counterparts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been training with Ghana Armed Forces while working in a hazardous materials or dangerous goods environment,\u201d said U.S. Army Maj. Kory Lund, deputy commander of the HRF-CBRN. \u201cThe training is going really well and it is strengthening our partnership with the Ghana military. As we build on one another, we increase our friendships and interoperability. We help our Ghana partners by showing them our best practices and they help us by showing their established procedures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Participants learned the fundamentals of decontamination and donning protective gear to contain an area where chemical contaminants are present. They also learned the steps to detecting CBRN environments.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are the CBRN experts and we are helping them learn those skills, and they [Ghana Armed Forces personnel] are EOD [explosive ordnance disposal] and firefighting experts,\u201d said Lund. \u201cAs we teach our material, they help us understand their environment better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lund said working together enables the HRF-CBRN to understand how U.S. EOD may approach a situation involving explosives and contaminants.<\/p>\n

While the main focus was on CBRN training, U.S. Soldiers and Ghana Armed Forces members built lasting bonds and friendships.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe training has gone really well. We\u2019ve met a ton of people and have seen a lot of new perspectives,\u201d said U.S. Army Spc. Cierra Frandsen, a CBRN specialist with the Utah National Guard\u2019s HRF-CBRN. \u201cWe are really grateful for the time we\u2019ve been given out here to not only teach them but to train with them and learn from them.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Soldiers were not the only ones to learn new perspectives, as participating GAF Soldiers had many questions for their U.S. counterparts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe coordination has been very good because they are free for us to ask them any question,\u201d said Ghana Armed Forces Sgt. Richard Darkwa, an explosive ordnance disposal technician. \u201cIf you don\u2019t understand something, they are open to answer any question you ask them and they are very understanding. More exercises like this should be organized so that others that work in different fields also have the chance to share the experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The combined CBRN training embodied the African Lion ethos: \u201cStronger Together.\u201d<\/p>\n

African Lion is an annual multinational training exercise between the United States and participating African nations to improve interoperability and build partnerships. This year\u2019s iteration features 18 nations and over 8,000 personnel hosted by Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal and Ghana.<\/p>\n

For more National Guard news<\/a><\/p>\n

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National Guard Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Utah National Guard Soldiers from the Homeland Response Force \u2013 Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Task Force trained with Ghana Armed Forces as part of Exercise African Lion 2023 May 31-June 14. (Photo Credit: Courtesy) VIEW ORIGINAL TAMALE, Ghana – Utah National Guard Soldiers from the Homeland Response Force \u2013 Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15562,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15560"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15563,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15560\/revisions\/15563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}