Defending The Nation's Capital

Army,  Oct 2006  by Swan, Guy C III

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

Leaning forward, bridging gaps, building relationships through peacetime engagement-for the U.S. Army Military District of Washington (MDW) that's what Army transformation has been about. It has given us a much more "purple" organization. It's not "your grandfather's MDW" anymore.

Over the past year we have made great strides in becoming a well-integrated, unified command designed to safeguard the National Capital Region (NCR) in times of crisis by deterring enemies, defeating attacks, assuring continuity of government and national military operations and mitigating the effects of natural or manmade catastrophes.

Such complex tasks cannot be done by the Army alone, by the military alone or even by government alone.

Old ways of thinking about safety and security must give way to common understanding at the local, state and federal levels. Likewise, old ways of doing business must be adjusted and, if necessary, reformed to build the operational links that will unify regional security efforts among the dozens of agencies and jurisdictions that call the Washington, D.C., area home.

This is happening-now. And the soldiers of MDW are applying the warrior ethos and the Army values as we contribute our traditional military skills to the emerging mission sets of homeland defense (HLD), defense support to civil authorities (DSCA) and emergency preparedness. As the backbone of the Joint Force Headquarters-National Capital Region (JFHQ-NCR) and its Army force component, MDW is forging joint and interagency alliances at all levels of civil government in the NCR. With the lessons of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina to draw on, "operationalizing" this new joint command has been our primary focus.

Located at Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C., MDW and JFHQ-NCR plan, coordinate, maintain situational awareness and, as directed, employ forces as a joint task force OTF) for HLD and DSCA missions in the National Capital Region Joint Operations Area (JOA). On a daily basis, JFHQ-NCR serves as one of four standing joint task forces subordinate to U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), headquartered in Colorado Springs, CoIo.

The JFHQ-NCR JOA is the statutorily defined National Capital Region, which encompasses an area of approximately 2,500 square miles with more than 4.3 million residents consisting of the District of Columbia and parts of northern Virginia and southern Maryland. The concentration of federal agencies, numerous local municipal jurisdictions, symbols and monuments of national prominence, and the presence of senior military and governmental leaders make the NCR an obvious center of gravity that requires sophisticated levels of planning, coordination and synchronization among literally dozens of regional partners and interagency players in order to safeguard this important locale.

In the past year we have made great strides in aligning our service component command partners-Naval District of Washington (NDW), Air Force District of Washington (AFDW), Marine Corps National Capital Region Command (MCNCRC) and Coast Guard District 5-with a common strategic vision. With their full participation, and in consultation with our many interagency partners and USNORTHCOM, we adopted a strategic plan that is helping guide our processes and goals through 2008.

We have mapped out a direction that increases our value within the broader emergency management community of the greater Washington, D.C., area where JFHQ-NCR, representing the Department of Defense and USNORTHCOM, is recognized as a center of excellence that is truly "relevant, ready and proactive as a joint, interagency and local team player, to serve as the single integrator for homeland defense and defense support to civil authorities in the NCR."

This vision and the rest of the strategic plan describe a command nested within USNORTHCOM, fully capable of executing the most challenging HLD and DSCA missions in support of a designated principal federal agency (PFA)-a command that is expert at accomplishing those missions in accordance with the National Response Plan and the National Incident Management System. Our goal is to be an enabler and partner for first responders, law enforcement officials and emergency management professionals in order to achieve unity of effort in meeting the challenges of any type of catastrophic incident or hazard in the NCR.

JFHQ-NCR's and MDW's daily interaction with federal, state and local agencies; NGOs; jurisdictions; and even the private sector supports and facilitates the command's ability to execute missions seamlessly within the NCR JOA. This day-to-day relationship-building provides the command with accurate, timely and relevant information in support of NCR planning and operational requirements, and contributes immensely to JFHQ-NCR's unique ability to maintain situational awareness on behalf of USNORTHCOM and DoD across a host of emergency support functions in and around the nation's capital. Thus the command maintains constant visibility and awareness of the likely needs of our civil agency partners in a potential crisis.