NTS teams are ready to roll

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Benjamin Wilson
  • 52nd Fighter Wing Public Affairs
SPANGDAHLEM AIR BASE, Germany --  In a time when natural disasters, political unrest and war are headlining news from across the globe, planning for the emergency evacuation of loved ones is more important than ever.

A noncombatant evacuation operation is designed to quickly move U.S. citizens from a dangerous region to a safe haven or U.S. soil. To make operations more efficient, the Department of State has a system to follow the movement of evacuees - the NEO Tracking System.

"The NEO Tracking System is a combination of personnel and equipment that is deployable to any location where there are American citizens," said Tech. Sgt. Ronald Smith, 52nd Fighter Wing NTS team lead. "We tag American citizens and process that information for the United States and track them throughout the evacuation process."

That information is used to help prepare the Department of State to receive the noncombatants.

"The whole reason why we do this is so that State Department has visibility over these evacuees," Sergeant Smith said. "The State Department would like to know how many people are coming, what the demographics are and if there are children so they can prepare to receive them back in the states for repatriation."

Preparing for evacuations takes the cooperation of NTS teams from across the European Command because a real-world emergency could happen anywhere at any time.

"The problem is (NTS teams) may not be doing a NEO from their location," said Master Sgt. Thomas Williams, U.S. Air Forces in Europe NTS component manager. "The units can deploy to other locations and pull people out."

The U.S. Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force members throughout Europe have teams ready to work together and go anywhere to help relocate American citizens in danger.

"The whole system is about taking care of our noncombatants - families, children, wives, husbands and the people who didn't take an oath of enlistment. We are trying to get those folks out of harm's way," Sergeant Smith said.

But taking care families wouldn't be possible without the efforts of NTS teams like the one at Spangdahlem Air Base.

"The members of the team have been very professional and make the sacrifices to ensure that if our wing is ever called to deploy this capability, we won't be embarrassed," Sergeant Smith said. "I have absolute confidence that if we are ever called to support NTS operations anywhere in the world that we would be able to go do a good job and represent our wing well."