Faculty Forum
Girding for Chemical and Biological Terrorist Attacks

Mark Epstein

By Mark Epstein

Although another major ground offensive may be underway as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, the war in Iraq is only part of an ongoing operation America has waged long before “Nine One One” became part of the contemporary lexicon: the “operation” to train America’s military. Though planning for war and educating America’s soldiers are inextricably linked and crucial to success on the battlefield, because of September 11, 2001, America’s service schools, service academies, as well as her universities, have forged an alliance to solve the problem of the terrorist threat to homeland America.

One of the military’s schools with a unique role in homeland defense is the Academy of Health Sciences, a part of the U.S. Army Medical Department Center and School located in San Antonio, Texas. The Nuclear Biological and Chemical Sciences Branch, a division of the Department of Preventive Health Services, played an important role in designing a significant amount of post-September 11 coursework to counter the emerging chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high-yield explosive (CBRNE) threat to America. With students in every conceivable status, from those just out of basic combat training learning combat medic skills, including qualifying as EMS personnel, to more advanced training as LPNs, to health physicists, to post-graduate medical education, the Academy of Health Sciences has a diverse student population unparalleled by any medical teaching institution in the country.

As a 1999 UMUC–Europe graduate, I was the noncommissioned officer in charge (NCOIC) of the NBC Sciences Branch during the time the U.S. Army Surgeon General, Lieutenant General James Peake, gave the order to incorporate CBRNE training into every short and long resident course taught at the Academy of Health Sciences, including an introductory class, a class on decontaminating patients, and as many classes as necessary to teach CBRNE-specific course material. Furthermore, Peake wanted an introductory class available via distance learning to facilitate baseline knowledge of the subject for soldiers scheduled to attend leadership schools, including command level courses. It was a tall order. Fortunately, I had taken a number of upper-level English courses via distance education, and I had been a student panel member involved with the discussion of distance education during a UMUC conference in Germany in the late 1990s and, therefore, formulating a plan to incorporate distance education was the easy portion of the task. However, what was not evident in the beginning was the energy needed to accomplish the mental paradigm shift within the student population from battlefield NBC training to CBRNE homeland defense, since every student had already been exposed to battlefield NBC concepts.

Besides the problem of refocusing a combat-oriented student population, I had to convince managers and instructors in every department to dedicate more than five hours of class time to just the basics of this new project. Although I had General Officer backing, this was still a daunting task. Whether a military operation or a corporate operation, whenever you ask someone to shift finite resources, you are asking the next-to-impossible. Yet, once I demonstrated an achievable method of accomplishing the task, the departments and their respective branches did a splendid job in producing their CBRNE-specific training.

Besides management issues and refocusing students, developing teaching material was critical to the overall effort. Many of our medical school graduates were already becoming “smart” on their own time, having read the existing literature on smallpox, anthrax, botulinum, and a bevy of other biological agents the United States and other countries designed before President Richard Nixon killed our country’s offensive weapon research program and the Biological Weapons Convention was ratified. Our material would have to demonstrate who the bad actors could be, why they would choose to use the weapons, how they could disseminate the agents or nuclear material, what the purpose would be or what would be achieved, when the agents would be used, and where in the homeland the terrorists would strike. Besides addressing these fundamental questions, the material had to be both convincing and demonstrate a historical pattern. Fortunately, history was on our side. From the 1970s through the end of the 20th century, my team could clearly demonstrate a significant increase in terrorist activity within the continental United States.

Though my team accomplished a tremendous amount of work between November 2001 and March 2003, and the U.S. Army Medical Department’s Active and Reserve Component’s consequence management capabilities are vastly superior to what they were on September 11, I left the NBC Sciences Branch on Friday, March 7, 2003, to take another position with the Fifth U.S. Army. However, the truly miraculous is still to come. Working with the Human Genome Project, the university system holds the key that will unlock the treatment protocols for the victims of chemical and biological weapons. Yes, there will be victims and they will occur on our home “turf.” This fact is a reality that, unfortunately, is inescapable. Yet I am confident our current and future microbiologists, bioengineers, and biophysicists, in conjunction with the medical community and other researchers, will unlock the inborn resiliency and natural ability of our body to heal itself and, therefore, will salve the suffering of terror victims.

Is it challenging? Absolutely. As Americans, though, we tend to enjoy a good challenge and, although I do not know anyone who does not abhor war, this particular proclivity of ours always forces us to expand our knowledge base. I sincerely pray we will discover the answers we need to ameliorate the suffering that is sure to come.

Mark Epstein, who earned a BA in English from UMUC–Europe, served three years in the U.S. Army, beginning in 1980, then re-enlisted in 1985, when he attended the Chemical Transition Course at Fort McClellan, Alabama. He served in a variety of combat arms, combat support, and combat service support units throughout his career. Currently, Epstein serves in the Exercise Operations Branch, CST Division, G3 Operations, 5th U.S. Army, Fort Sam Houston, Texas.