BISMARCK, N.D. (National Guard) – The North Dakota National Guard’s 81st Civil Support Team (CST) will conduct a joint exercise with the North Dakota Highway Patrol and the North Dakota Department of Health state laboratory, Wednesday, Nov. 17 beginning at 8:30 a.m.

In this exercise scenario, the North Dakota Highway Patrol requests National Guard assistance in identifying a suspicious package.

Initially, the exercise will be conducted on the northwest corner of the North Dakota state capitol grounds and in the vicinity of the Governor’s front office. The 81st CST will stage their vehicles and equipment in the parking lot.

Later, between 11:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m., exercise participants will move to the North Dakota Department of Health state laboratory.

The public entrance on the south side of the capitol building will remain open and state operations will not be affected by this exercise.

The 81st CST supports civil authorities at domestic incident sites with as identification and assessment of hazards, advice to incident commander, facilitating follow-on military forces during emergencies and incidents. The CST is capable of detecting and identifying chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high-yield explosives.

North Dakota’s 81st CST team, comprised of 22 full-time Army and Air Force National Guard personnel, was authorized by the Department of Defense in Nov. 2004. Since then, the unit members have participated in intensive technical training and rehearsals to prepare them for their potential missions.

In Aug. 2006, the team successfully passed an exercise evaluation conducted by the US Army which validated their readiness to respond.