WEBVTT

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- The State Partnership
Program is about building

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relationships between National Guard units

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of the United States and
their foreign counterparts.

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For example, the state
of Michigan is partnered

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with the country of Latvia, and the state

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of Tennessee is partnered
with the country of Bulgaria.

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These partnerships are strengthened

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by mutually beneficial training.

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During exercise Northern Strike 18,

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firefighters from different countries

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are training with US
firefighters, perfecting

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their rappelling and climbing skills.

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- Today we have the
Tennessee Air National Guard,

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the Ohio National Guard,
the 180th Fighter Wing,

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the Bulgarians, Estonians
and Latvian firefighters

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from our state partners, and
also the state of Michigan

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fire rescue personnel that
work here at Alpena CRTC.

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- Our goal is just to get
our coalition partners

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familiar with rescuing somebody
off a high-angle scenario,

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just to get them real
comfortable with rappelling down,

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getting their feet against
the wall, so that way,

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if we ever do have to go
off the side of a building

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or anything, they're real
familiar with how it feels,

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and they can go down and
potentially rescue somebody.

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Especially with the Baltic
countries, there's been a big

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move to build the DSCA,
the domestic capabilities

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within those countries, and them learning

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how to rappel down, you
could have potential flood,

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or some sort of large
domestic event, and many

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of their local fire departments
don't have this type

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of advanced training, where
they know how to rappel

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off the side of a wall,
or rappel down the side

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of a mountain to rescue somebody.

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So we're just hoping to
kind of get them here,

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expose them to some
different types of training

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to build that capability, so they can

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take it back to their
country, where they can

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maybe show someone else
in the fire department,

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hey, you know I learned
this in the United States,

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how to rappel down or tie
this knot, and it worked well

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in these events, and
maybe we can use that here

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and put that into our type of concepts

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when we're rescuing people.

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It just will improve their
country's capability greatly.

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- This is extreme, and fun, nice program.

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I like, because in my country,
we're not here for this.

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We don't have this gear, equipment.

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In this country have
everything, and I see news,

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and this is very good.

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- Everything is going very
well, everyone's enjoying

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themselves, as well as learning.

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One thing that I learned
from them is that they share

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the same passion as we do,

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as far as the career field itself.

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They work hard to perfect their skills,

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they do the research, they always

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want to be better than the next day.

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So that's what I've taken from him.

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They really work hard at what they do.

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- I make a good relationship
with Sergeant Jones,

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the Latvian guys, and Estonians.

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- I'm just really excited about this year,

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for this event, because
this is the first time

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that we've had multiple
Baltic countries involved

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in the Incident Command class,
and also the Northern Strike.

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I think this is kind of
the way for the future,

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doing these 1251 events, that gives us

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the authority to do these classes.

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I can see it growing,
and I would love to see

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here in the future having multiple states,

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with their partners,
come here to the CRTC,

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do fire training, and see
how Michigan's doing it,

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and go back and say, alright,
guys we did this up in Alpena,

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let's go over to Bulgaria
and do this training,

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let's go over to Estonia and
do this type of training.

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I think that's the future of the program,

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it's definitely gonna be
improved, the SPP program,

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and that initiative for
the Air National Guard.

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I think from this training event here,

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just kind of proved that
you can take a firefighter,

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change his clothes, change his uniform,

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but we're still firefighters.