Personnel scanners provide added level of security in Afghanistan

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — It took the com­bined resources of Army, Air Force, con­trac­tors and civil­ian air assets to move a per­son­nel scan­ner into place at an entry con­trol point here Dec. 31.

Maj. Nicole Willis, Pro­gram Man­ag­er Guardian liai­son offi­cer, demon­strates how per­son­nel will use the scan­ner emplaced near an entry con­trol point on Bagram Air­field, Afghanistan, Dec. 31, 2011. Click to enlarge

The scan­ner is a Prod­uct Man­ag­er Force Pro­tec­tion Sys­tems item that is man­aged in the­ater by the Pro­gram Manger Guardian liai­son offi­cer and PM FPS. 

Pro­gram man­agers and prod­uct man­agers sup­port­ing Oper­a­tion Endur­ing Free­dom bring materiel solu­tions to sup­port war fight­er require­ments that have been val­i­dat­ed by U.S. Forces Afghanistan. They are in the­ater under the author­i­ty of Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of the Army for Acqui­si­tions, Logis­tics and Tech­nol­o­gy, known as ASA(ALT), and sup­port­ed by 401st Army Field Sup­port Brigade, which lever­ages the materiel enter­prise to field, sus­tain and redis­trib­ute equipment. 

Falling under Army Sus­tain­ment Com­mand, Army Materiel Command’s oper­a­tional arm, the 401st is AMC’s sin­gle face to the field. 

The scan­ner was emplaced at an entry con­trol point heav­i­ly used by Afghan civil­ians requir­ing access to a coali­tion run hos­pi­tal. Sev­er­al hun­dred per­sons enter the con­trol point every day. Before hav­ing the per­son­nel scan­ner, each per­son was sub­ject­ed to a phys­i­cal pat-down as part of the entry process. Now they will step into a scan­ner sim­i­lar to those used in airports. 

“The scan­ner will reduce per­son­nel pat-downs, pro­vide a bet­ter secu­ri­ty pos­ture and move per­son­nel through the [entry con­trol] process faster,” said Maj. Nicole Willis, Pro­gram Man­ag­er Guardian liai­son offi­cer. “It pro­vides an extra lay­er of secu­ri­ty and will be safer for everyone.” 

“The [coali­tion run] hos­pi­tal is a huge COIN (Counter Insur­gency) effort,” said Air Force Tech. Sgt. Michael J. Larsen, a secu­ri­ty forces air­man with the 175th Wing, Mary­land Air Nation­al Guard assigned to 455th Expe­di­tionary Secu­ri­ty Forces Squadron .“The scan­ner will be a 10-fold improve­ment that pro­vides a less intru­sive X‑ray scan, a more thor­ough search and increas­es our stand-off dis­tance. It’s a huge asset.” 

Willis said it took about six weeks to com­plete the mission. 

“The plan­ning was pret­ty quick,” she said. 

The exe­cu­tion need­ed more coor­di­na­tion due to the num­ber of groups involved such as coor­di­nat­ing for a civil­ian heli­copter to use a mil­i­tary sling sys­tem Willis said. 

Once the scan­ner was emplaced, it was esti­mat­ed that it would be up and run­ning in about two hours. A gen­er­a­tor and fenc­ing were installed by con­trac­tors and Air Force secu­ri­ty personnel. 

Source:
U.S. Army 

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