Patriot '25-The Ground is shaking and People are Dying
- Ben Landkammer
- Jul 22
- 7 min read
Back in March Kato and I, along with BUSAR were invited back (post about last year here) to the Air Force National Guard's Patriot Exercise, this year held at a few facilities around Savannah, GA. We made it a whole pack affair and brought Koa, who ended up becoming everyone's favorite fire pit snuggle bug.
We were able to take a few extra days off and extend our time there at the front end, kicking the week off at Fort Stewart. Once checked in on base, we headed to the range where Technical Sergeant, SERE instructor and BUSAR teammate Wells Holbrook had a section of land reserved for us to play on and camp at.
We started off with K9 handlers Kerry Clark of the Westbrook, ME police department and her partner Desi, who we met last year, and her friend Nicole St. Pierre of Maine Search and Rescue Dogs. We also had USAF SERE instructors Pert and Campbell, two quality dudes who became quick friends, as well as junior high and high school young adults from multiple Civil Air Patrol flights from northern Georgia, and their leadership.
The week was kicked off teaching survival and search and rescue skills such as shelter building, water procurement and fire building, land navigation, search tactics, signaling, litter carry, and day and night aircraft vectoring. These kids were quite impressive and very dialed in, and a lot of fun to work with. It made me wish I had looked more into the Civil Air Patrol at that age.
Saturday evening was our final training iteration at Stewart, and Wells had a fantastic scenario worked up. We had an AFNG Lakota crew from up north providing ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) on site, training ahead of a deployment to the southern border to keep an eye on things. The scenario was that a van full of the CAP kids was being watched as it went down the road, and when the time was right they all bailed out and scattered. The three K9's along with some BUSAR teammates that showed up earlier that day made up the ground search crews, directed by the Lakota which was running FLIR and thermal. Tracking dogs, radios, helicopters, night vision and hide and seek in the woods? Sign me up!
Sunday morning saw new faces in camp when a group of National Guard CERFP (CBRNE Enhanced Response Force Package-think super specialized chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear) medics arrived, ready to work through a survival block of instruction for the following few days. That is when I received a call from Senior Master Sergeant Bill Werner, who is one of the planners of Patriot Exercise, a K9 handler back home in New Hampshire at his local PD, and an all around great dude. He had taken me under his wing last year, and was calling to see if I wanted to head over the the Guardian Center in Perry, GA, which was a couple hours away to get some more focussed work in with Kato. After talking with the boys, I was told that I would be an idiot to stick around and miss such an opportunity, so we pulled camp and hit the road.
Once checked in we found our accommodations, and I couldn't have been happier going from sleeping on the ground and not having a shower in a few days (not to mention only having MRE's, freeze dried food tand delivery pizza to eat), to having a room to ourselves in a little cabin with A/C, a bed, a shower,...all the luxuries. I linked up with Kerry and Nicole and we toured the complex and ran a few scenarios with the pups and a few role players who had volunteered to hide for us. Guardian Center is an old Northrop Grunman facility that was built in the 80's as an ICBM manufacturing plant, but was never operational in that role. So it was turned into an elite training facility for everyone from tier one operators (think Navy Seals, British SAS and the like) to state and local first responders and private security contractors. We had access to everything from a 16 block city complete with fully functional office complexes, abandoned buildings, collapsed parking structures, a subway station with ticket office, platform, subway cars, meth lab, and huge tunnel system...any scenario you can think of, they can set up. It's a big kid playground and we were in heaven.
We were told that we had basically full use of the city and our role players the following day, so we spent Monday working the dogs and throwing all kinds of new stuff at them-it was a lot of fun getting to work urban/industrial environments, and we even tried getting Kato to track from the ground floor to the roof helo pad of an office building, starting outside on the street. Not something we'll ever see operating in the Smokies, but a totally worthwhile and valuable training rep that was something new and fun. We also got to watch a bunch of Georgia State Patrol SWAT personnel take down a few buildings after inserting via helo and popping off breaching charges, which was rad. They had another helo in the air providing aerial sniper support, and a malinois in play!
Tuesday was the big mission day, and after grabbing some breakfast at the cafeteria, Kato and I made our way to the city to hang out until things kicked off. First order of business-link up with First Sergeant Jessica Couch and make coffee. The scenario this year was an earthquake, and the role players were ready-cars on fire, fog machines going, fire hydrants opened up to flood the streets, sirens wailing. Fake blood and tore clothing. Absolute mayhem. It was like stepping onto the set of a zombie movie. We hung out until AFNG Security Forces arrived, and the role players kicked into gear. They are phenomenal, and a ton of fun to watch. All in the guard themselves, they've all been on the other side and know how to mess with and make things as real as possible for those coming to help. The entire day is scripted-missing family members, missing pets, a deceased infant, people trapped on roofs in a flooded neighborhood, a pregnancy in the trailer park-at one point I walked around the corner and a few guys had acquired a four wheeler and had raided the local liquor store ('WE FOUND THE BOOZE!!!"), looting of businesses,...-it's constant chaos and made to be as real as possible. We got to hang out and watch, in and out of character as things developed and our help was requested. Kato and I were pulled in to track a missing person, and later in the afternoon Kerry and Desi, Nicole and Kenny G (best dog name ever?!) were requested to help a Special Forces squad with a handful of Georgia State Defense Force personnel attached to them to clear the tunnel structure.
The day was over at 4 pm, and after running Koa around a bit, a shower and quick nap I grabbed some grub and we had a little downtime. Then the 3 K9's were given instructions and a contact to link up with at the local GSP helo base. Our pilot was the quintessential Georgia farmer, and lifelong patrolman. As he was working up and submitting our flight plan, he remarked in a thick, measured drawl "I may not type very fast, but I can fly the hell out of a helicopter." I looked at Kerry with a big smile on my face.
Our final mission was that we were to be inserted via helo to the landing pad behind some old ammunition bunkers. It was a quick flight, but was super cool to get to see the city lit up at night. Our person of interest had hit the woods 45 minutes earlier and had dropped a scent article at the edge of the helo pad. Initially I had some worries about contamination and the start getting blasted twice by rotor wash twice, however those qualms were quickly assuaged when Kato hit the article and took off like a rocket at the end of his tracking lead...well, a rocket towing a boat anchor as our track layer basically crawled through the thickest stuff he could find for the entire track. I really do appreciate a devious and thoughtful track layer...
We found him very quickly, and I was worried at first that we had found the wrong person because the track was so short, but given the difficulty of the start and a bit of age on the track I was extremely happy with Kato and chalk it up as a solid win. Walking out of the woods I was sweaty, out of breath and had a huge smile on my face. Once everyone was found we were shuttled back to the cabins, and had another great evening kicking it with the planners and role players around the fire, sharing stories about our day and a lot of laughs. It was great to further relationships started last year and get to know people better, and meet new faces that we didn't end up bumping into last year.
The entire thing is meant to get Air Force National Guard Security Forces personnel the training they need, while learning to integrate with full time military units and first responders of all stripes-all with an eye towards being prepared for the next natural disaster and/or domestic operation. Planning for next year is already in the works, and I am extremely grateful to get to be involved as both years have been an amazing and super valuable experience of working dogs, teaching and working on survival and search and rescue skills, learning to integrate with other units and cross training any number of skills while sharing concepts, techniques and SOP's...and making friends along the way.
