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Airmen harness radiation to search vehicles

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Levi Riendeau
  • 321 Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
BAGHDAD --  With a little bit of training and the power of gamma-rays, 447th Expeditionary Security Forces Airmen are developing their vehicle search skills using the relocatable Vehicle and Cargo Inspection System.

Eight Airmen were hand-selected to train on the VACIS, a gamma-ray imaging system made by Science Applications International Corp., over the course of five days.

The system was relocated to the Sather Air Base vehicle search area after the entry control point where it was previously used was closed.

Along with moving the system to the air base, SAIC brought Ryan May, their in-country trainer for the VACIS system.

"It's a good system and can be used to do a lot when it is used properly," May said. Proper operation is what he was there to teach. May spent the five training days going over radiation safety, trouble-shooting the system and reading output from the scanner.

"It felt like I was back in high school," said Staff Sgt. Gerald Bolyard, deployed from the 355th Security Forces Squadron, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz. "The first day was a lot of science."

The training started in the class room and continued in the search pit with Airmen spending half their time receiving hands-on instruction with the system.

"The training has given our Airmen the opportunity to do something more in-depth," said Master Sgt. Jeffrey King, 447th ESFS flight chief. He said the training gives his Airmen an opportunity to bring something else to the table.

While the system is impressive for a relocatable gamma-ray scanning system, it is not intended to be used alone. When utilized in conjunction with other search techniques at the gates, it is truly effective.

"We train the operators to use the system's tools to read the density maps," May said. Once the maps are analyzed, suspicious areas are highlighted and then searched manually either from ESFS members or by military working dogs.

Various VACIS systems have been in use since 1994. In addition to being an integral tool for military installation security, they are also employed in border protection. More recently, the mobile version was used in February during Super Bowl XLV held at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, to supplement their security screening process.

Even though the system is currently used to find contraband previous checkpoints may have missed, it has potentially more impact as military forces in Baghdad begin to draw down.

"Once installations here start to close up and we become more of our own installation, this gives us more security and more explosives capability," said Sergeant Bolyard.