The Significance of Technical Escort Units in a Post 9-11 WMD Domain

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In a Post 9-11 WMD Environment
The world is changing, becoming smaller and more dangerous it seems, and the events of September 11th, 2001, brought a distinct reality crashing down around us. The reality was that we could be hit on the home front, after all. The enemy determined to do so harbors zero concern for the “rules of war” and will stop at nothing to inflict the greatest amount of carnage and casualties possible. As the government and Department of Defense has worked to adapt and respond, there is one Army occupational specialty that has become increasingly relevant. That Army unit is known as Technical Escort (TE). In today’s age, our public officials and military commanders need rapid, real-time surety and assessments of suspected weapons of mass destruction (WMD), toxic and/or poisonous waste, and special material facilities affected by natural disaster. As the battlefield grows ever more asymmetrical, the capabilities TE units can provide will continually become more valuable and pertinent to our nation’s WMD defense. During most of the 20th century, the possibility of an attack on American soil involving WMD seemed unlikely to a majority of United States (U.S.) citizens. Nearly all major conflicts took place a great distance from the continental U.S., with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor being the closest exception geographically. The view that the public, and in large part the armed forces, had of any WMD threat hovered somewhere between ignorance and skepticism. Aside from the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 1960s, most of the country felt safeguarded against any category of de...

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...nues to train our best CBRN Soldiers to meet the challenges of tomorrow with confidence and professional expertise.

References
Alibek, K. (1999). Biohazard. New York: Random House, Inc., 281-282
Army, U.S. (2007). FM 3-11.20, Technical Escort Battalion Operations. Washington D.C.: United States., 1-1, 1-2
Cordesman, A. H. (2002). Terrorism, Asymmetric Warfare, and Weapons of Mass Destruction. Westport: Praeger Publishers., 34
Mauroni, A. (2003). Chemical Demilitarization: Public Policy Aspects. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers., 126-128
Mauroni, A. (1998). Chemical-Biological Defense: U.S. Military Policies and Decisions in the Gulf War. Westport: Praeger., 2-3
Mauroni, A. (2006). Where are the WMDs? Annapolis: Naval Institute Press., 101, 152, 156, 230
Zilinskas, R. A. (2005). Encyclopedia of Bioterrorism Defense. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley and Sons, Inc., 41-42

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