Soldiers Gain Authentic Mission-Related Experience in Nuclear Facilities

Idaho National Laboratory (INL) officials provided U.S. Army soldiers with a unique opportunity to become more familiar with nuclear facilities. Soldiers traveled to the INL headquarters to participate in the exercise, where they worked in “operational” nuclear environments.  

This marked a significant change to their usual nuclear training exercises, according to Shad Keele, program manager and a senior research scientist for the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosives response and readiness program at the INL. 

“When these guys are training, typically, we’re setting up targets or we’re setting up training aids that have a realistic look but haven’t actually been operated or utilized in a nuclear process,” Keele said during an interview with SIGNAL Media. “So, by them coming here for this validation exercise, they were actually allowed to go into real, operational nuclear facilities, similar to what they would see in their mission when they actually execute for a real-world exercise.” 

During the exercise, soldiers were able to participate in several key activities, such as performing initial entries, facility characterizations and radiation detection tests. 

An authentic exercise like this gives warfighters the ability to perform a test rehearsal, which leads to more prepared and, subsequently, more lethal soldiers.  

In addition to using legitimate and operational nuclear facilities, the elements of operational nuclear facilities are also unfabricated, Keele explained.  

“The radiation and contamination signatures in a real facility are real,” Keele said. “It’s not like we introduced them; it’s not like we made them up. They’re exactly how they would appear in a real-world target to scale. A lot of the time when we’re hitting targets that were developed or made, you can’t really appreciate the size or scale of these facilities. They were trying to get real signatures, [and] they were also trying to get timelines. [For instance], how long is it actually going to take them to execute a full mission inside an actual large-scale facility.” 

At the conclusion of the event, INL officials gathered feedback from the participants, who approved and applauded the exercise, according to Keele.  

“So, every exercise, at the end, we have an after-action review,” Keele said. “We did them daily as well as at the end of the exercise. So, the feedback from the team was ultimately that this [exercise] met every single expectation of theirs as far as their initial requirements, and they were already asking for not only additional exercises here at INL, but they already had started brainstorming what the next full mission profiles were going to look like.” 

The exercise took place from May 27 to June 3 at the INL facilities in Idaho Falls, Idaho. 

The INL is one of 17 labs within the U.S. Department of Energy, and the thousands of researchers and staff are focused on several scientific areas, from experimenting with complex nuclear energy concepts to working with industry to create more sustainable innovations. The lab has been powering scientific research and innovation for more than 75 years, according to INL officials.