BILLINGS — The Montana National Guard conducted a full-scale anti-terrorism exercise Wednesday at the Billings Armed Forces Reserve Center, bringing together city, state and military agencies to test communication and emergency response procedures.
The drill simulated an explosive threat at the facility, running participants through the full response from initial discovery to scene clearance and accountability reporting.
Watch officials talk about the goals behind the training:
"The Montana National Guard conducted an anti-terrorism exercise with community partners to establish our communication across the border and to ensure that we are able to identify any friction points that may cause delayed responses or any type of lag in communication," State Anti-Terrorism Coordinator David Reeves-Mendoza said Wednesday.
Reeves-Mendoza led Montana's side of the effort.
"I go to our National Guard facilities and ensure that we are taking the proper measures to protect ourselves against terrorist attacks and vulnerability of the facilities," Reeves-Mendoza said.
The exercise was designed to evaluate preparedness, test procedures and refine communication among partnering agencies — something Reeves-Mendoza said is always the first priority.
Eric Huebner with the Montana Army National Guard said communication is not just key to training — it is essential in real-world scenarios.
"Identified the issue being the bomb in this situation, communicate that to the bomb techs here in Billings through the EOD within the National Guard— the EOD being explosive ordinance disposal— and then responding however we can to assist their response," Huebner said.
The exercise covered the full scope of a response, from the moment a threat is discovered to the final clearance of the scene.
"We have played it from start to finish of initial, in this one, response to where an explosive device is discovered all the way through clearing of the scene by all the responders and accountability reporting to higher headquarters of all our personnel, and that's that's the most important thing we're doing here," Huebner said.
Reeves-Mendoza said the number of participating agencies can vary widely, but every exercise counts.
"We may have 15 organizations or sometimes it might be just three or four, but we're still going to exercise what we need to to ensure our service members in the community are safe," Reeves-Mendoza said, adding, "I think that we had a pretty good exercise overall."
