.
It looked like a military invasion at Luther High School, as Army trucks, gear and soldiers swarmed over the school, the gymnasium and parking lots for a Homeland Defense training exercise.
About 350 troops used Luther High as a staging area for Exercise Red Dragon, a HAZMAT training exercise in La Crosse that was conducted in cooperation with local emergency responders and hospitals.
Luther High was used for initial operations and sleeping quarters for the troops who arrived June 17.
The Army took over the principal’s office, used the board room as a command center and turned the reception area into a communications center. The secretary’s small computer monitor was dwarfed by all the equipment on the desk.
“Isn’t this something?” said Paul Wickmann, Luther principal. He said the preparations for the troop arrivals started a couple months ago.
“It’s a privilege and honor to have them here,” Wickmann said. “It’s a small way of saying thanks for their sacrifices to our country. We’re very honored to be a small part of the operation.”
Exercise Red Dragon consisted of a simulated toxic industrial chemical release emergency and was designed to prepare local and federal authorities for mass casualties, possibly up to 1,500 victims. During the exercise conducted June 17-19 in La Crosse, Army Reserve soldiers coordinated defense support with civil authorities including personnel from the Onalaska police and fire departments.
Area businesses got into the act as well, providing food so the troops did not have to eat the military “meals ready to eat” out of cans. Kwik Trip, Reinhart Foods and Pepsi all donated food and beverages.
“It is important for the soldiers to realize that if called upon to respond to an incident, they will be required to set up in non-conventional areas such as schools and office buildings rather than military facilities,” said Lt. Col. Brian Cook, deputy commander of the 209th Regional Support Group.
“The support offered by the communities and the integration of the soldiers with the local community are just as important to the success of the Homeland Defense Response as the capabilities that the soldiers provide are. I thank the Luther School executives for their support in training our soldiers for this mission.”
Maj.John Brown, from the 457th Chemical Battalion, said the La Crosse exercise was part of a series of exercises being conducted in Wisconsin involving a total of 2,400 troops.
“We just came in from training in Milwaukee where we trained with seven hospitals,” Brown said. He said his battalion was the main incident response force, but there were many units training with them, and they were all under the 415th Chemical Brigade headquartered in Greenville, S.C.
Sgt. Genesis Ramirez, one of the lead technical support troops, said he could communicate with anyone anywhere in the world and the troops can use the communications equipment anytime they want to call home.
Ramirez said the Army trained him to use all the sophisticated communications equipment and technology.
“I knew vague things about the equipment. But the knowledge of the systems I’ve learned here is the equivalent to having a Cisco certification as a network administrator or voice professional. The knowledge is a great asset to have for civilian life.”
When he is not on the two-weeks-a-year reserve training period, Ramirez is a network administrator for Everest University, an online university with degree programs in homeland security, business and criminal justice.
.
Advertisement 
