The CA-6 Chronicles The latest news and information from the California Bay Area Disaster Medical Assistance Team, DMAT CA-6 — Visit us at www.dmatca6.org — Vol. 3, No. 10 October, 2003 Caregivers to the Nation…Building a bridge between hope and despair Founded in 1997

Mark Your Calendars have a 48’ enclosed trailer to We saw mostly the usual requests donate to the team! We took for band-aids, Tylenol and • Oct 22 – Back to Basics load- delivery last week. It needs a paint sunscreen, but we saw some out at the warehouse, 9a-3p. job and some registration interesting cases as well: an We need a few people to come paperwork, and then we’re ready to imbedded fish hook, tooth injury, help load the truck. RSVP to go. Thanks, Bill! fingers slammed in a car door, and Dave Lipin. FEMA Direct Deposit a post-op fistula dressing • Oct 24 - 26 – Back to Basics replacement. [Yes, Annie even let Don’t forget to turn in that FEMA field exercise, March Air me put a band-aid on someone. Direct Deposit form! Instructions Reserve Base in S. CA. Sign- Erick took the photo to prove it!] and details are in the September ups are now closed for this We probably recruited one or two newsletter. exercise. new members as well. • Oct 28 – Back to Basics load- Team Song at Back to Basics Our new, smaller booth worked in at the warehouse, 9a-3p. If you’re signed up for Back to well, as did our new 12’ “strike Again, just need a few people Basics and can carry a tune (or team response” trailer. Both made to help unload the truck. RSVP maybe just hum a few bars), we’d setup and tear-down much easier to Dave Lipin. like you to help us show some team (what a relief). • spirit by singing the team song at Nov 8 – Last logistics workday Video Project of the year! 10a-3p. the exercise! It’ll be quick, easy and fun. Contact Bonnie Atencio We’re looking for a team member • Dec 6 – Team holiday party, at for the words and tune. with some video talent (and Russ and Dawn’s house in equipment) to film team meetings, Lafayette. Details to follow. Distinguished Member of the Year exercises, work days, etc. News • Feb – On-call month. Yes, it’s almost that time again. media ask for this to use as “B roll” • Mar 12 - 14 – Field exercise Start thinking about which team background footage to supplement with 297th Medical Support member best-distinguished himself a story when we prepare for or Battalion at Camp Parks, or herself within the team. We’ll deploy on a mission. If you’re Dublin. ask for e-mail votes in November interested or need more details, and announce the winner in contact our team’s PIO, Mary Clare December. The Distinguished Bennett. Commander’s Corner Member of the Year gets an all- By David Lipin, Commander expenses-paid trip to next year’s And you thought that our busy NDMS Conference in Dallas, TX. period was over! The October schedule is just chock full of activities, and it’s the final month of fire season to boot! So don’t let your guard down just yet. We can start to relax once we get into November… Section Updates By the DMAT CA-6 Section Chiefs Donated Trailer Many thanks go to Bill Bush for his Fleet Week Finance/Administration Section doggedly determined letter-writing Thanks to all those who joined us Just a reminder that in order to campaign to find a company at this year’s Fleet Week. The air receive Continuing Education Units willing to donate us a trailer. He show was great, and the weather for our trainings, you must suffered rejection after rejection, was picture-perfect. complete and submit both the month after month, until finally evaluation and test. There were CWX called to tell us that they quite a few members who did not Page 1 submit anything for the October 4 Annie replied, “My favorite, of he was so surprised at what I said, team meeting and will not be able course, is trauma. It is amazing to he just shook his head and said to obtain CEU’s until the me that we manage to save lives at under his breath, ‘Oh God, what tests/evaluations have been turned all, especially since the trauma have I gotten into?’ We’ve been in to the admin office. This is a patients come in to us in such a crazy together ever since!” requirement for all BRN and CME mangled mess sometimes.” When asked how she got involved providers to have on file. Originally from Baltimore, with DMAT, Annie remembers, “I Logistics Section Maryland, Annie recalls “I came was working up in a small rural out here to California when I was a emergency room in Davis. It was Please help us on the Back to young, 19 year old, and never went January of 1997 and the rains were Basics load-out (Wed, Oct 22, back. I miss the seasons and the awful. Marysville and Susanville 0900) and load-in (Tue, Oct 28, seafood, but that’s all. My dad was were all under water because the 0900). The more people we have, a cop and my hero. He was from levees broke. The OES in the faster we can do it! Please California, and when he retired Woodland called our ER asking for RSVP to Dave Lipin if you can from the police department, we nurses to work the disaster and I make it, so we know how many to moved out here. My dad was a said ‘sure why not’? It was the expect. good Irish Catholic boy, and my greatest thing I’ve every done! We And don’t forget the last logs day mom was a gentle Southern Baptist had 800 displaced people in a high of the year: Nov 8, 1000 to 1500. lady, so my brother and I grew up school gym. We made a few Operations Section singing all the old religious songs. hallways into a mini hospital with After we said a few Hail Mary’s at people who were sick and needed [No update submitted.] the dinner table, it was sort of like, meds. It lasted about 4 days. The Plans Section ‘Praise the lord and pass the Red Cross was there also. I loved [No update submitted.] ammunition’, just after ‘Hail Mary it! Four months later I moved to Full of Grace!’” Concord, called OES and asked if I As for hobbies, Annie loves to could be on the roster to work garden, sew and read gothic another disaster. They said they romance novels – “The kinds of didn’t have anything like that, novels,” she says, “that have pirates however I soon found out that and heaving breasts on the front DMAT CA-6 had formed, and cover!” And, she adds, “As for joined the team.” pets.... Bill is my favorite!” “If I could just do disaster nursing Annie met Bill on the computer in for a living,” Annie says, “I’d be Meeting One of Our a chat room. “(Gasp!)” says Annie. delighted! From the time I was a Own: Georgann Bustin “And I did a ride-a-long with him little girl, I have wanted to be a in the Tenderloin. Boring! He kept FEMA nurse. Now, here I am! I Edited by Mary Clare Bennett, PIO trying to convince me that it was a just wish it were full time. That’s Name: Georgann Bustin, RN very dangerous place in the city. So how much I love it. And the people you find on teams like ours are so Team Position: Staff Nurse we did another ride-a-long and genuine, so passionate and so “Annie”, as team members fondly again nothing big happened. Well okay, a small mini riot broke out dedicated. It’s a wonderful group of call her, is married to Bill Bush, and we zoomed there code 3 with people.” When asked if she had any also a CA-6 team member. Annie lights and sirens, which I thought words of wisdom for the team, has been in the nursing field for 20 Annie replied, “If I had to share years and currently works in the was very cool. We pull up and there are about 50 people fighting, any thoughts about life in general, I emergency room at San Francisco guess they would be; keep your General Hospital. She has had an and cops are all over the place, and shouting, and Bill says ‘stay in the integrity intact, have the courage to interesting career, starting out first car’. And I'm thinking to myself, live life, and dance like there's as a lab tech, then working as a nobody watching!” CNA, a Unit Secretary, then on the ‘not on your life buddy’! So I got switchboard, next as an LVN, a out, and he came around to my side respite nurse, and finally as an RN. and shouted ‘I said to stay in the She has worked in med-surg, car’! I stuck my face right into his and said ‘No, I’m not afraid of you oncology, emergency, aids and I’m not waiting in the car!’ dementia, ICU, and trauma nursing. When asked what she likes best, Poor Bill, he wasn’t used to someone not listening to him and

Al Qaeda’s Stealth Weapons By Sebastian Rotella, Los Angeles Times BBC News, UK Edition, September 20, 2003 Muslim converts who are drawn to Training News fanaticism pose special dangers By Sam Bradley, Training Officer well beyond their symbolic impact. and David Lipin, Unit Commander Safety Corner ‘The blue-eyed emir’ is one example. Online training requirements By Walt Sanders, Safety Officer CHAMBLES, – The By the end of this month, you Concerns over Sequelae of convicted terrorist has a hard-core should have completed the Smallpox moniker: “the blue-eyed emir of following online modules: When the New York City Board of Tangier.” • Nov: Welcome (100) and Health found 3 deaths and 13 But Pierre Richard Robert was NDMS In Review (111) ischemic events following once a French country boy, an • Dec: DMAT Roles & Smallpox vaccinations to postal athletic blond teenager living in a Responsibilities (112) workers in 2001, and then when house built by his father among further apparently vaccinia-related pastures here in the Loire region. • Jan: Personal Gear (122) cardiac events occurred earlier this Robert liked drinking and fast bikes • Feb: Team Safety (124) year, the CDC recommended no more than school. He got interested • Mar: Tents & Command Setup vaccine for people with indicators in when he played soccer at (131) of potential heart disease. the Turkish cultural center in a • Apr: Logistical Issues (133) Some of us with such indicators neighboring industrial town. He were refused or advised to forego said he wanted to convert because • May: Litter Bearing (136) vaccination during this year's team Allah watched over him as he sped • Jun: Critical Incident Stress vaccination push. I was among downhill into town on his bicycle. Management (147) those advised against it, but chose “I told him it’s not like changing • Jul: Incident Management to go with it anyway (I only shirts,” said Ibrahim Tekeli, a System (130) suffered a nasty "Smallpox flu"). leader of the Turkish community. • Aug: Disaster Response (110) Now is has been reported that the “The imam told him, ‘I want you to events of this year were probably reflect and talk to your family • Sep: Telecommunications not related to the vaccine first.’ But Richard said: ‘I’ve (134) (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly already reflected for months before • Oct: Disaster Triage (142) Report for October 3rd). To further I made my decision, I would run You can check the current training investigate, 6 million New Yorkers the red light on the big hill every completion rate in the Members vaccinated with the same vaccinia day going real fast. I would always Only area of the team website. If strain in 1947 were compared to pray to Allah to protect me. And I you took a course but the report 1946 and 1948 deaths. The result: never got hit by a car.’ ” says otherwise, make sure you took no difference! Fourteen years later, though, the survey, and then contact one of The CDC appears to have removed Robert has hit bottom. A Moroccan our Training Officers for help. this obstacle from their court sentenced him to life in Save the Dates! recommendations. Therefore, prison Thursday after convicting considering these findings, it might him of recruiting and training The California EMS Authority is be advisable for any team members Moroccan extremists for a terrorist reminding all medical and health that did not receive the Smallpox campaign. care providers of the following immunization this year to He joins an unlikely group of men upcoming conferences and reconsider. exercise: with non-Muslim backgrounds that includes Richard Reid, the British • 2003 Statewide Medical and “shoe bomber” convicted of trying Health Disaster Exercise – th to blow up an airliner; American November 13 , 1600-2000. Jose Padilla, an alleged Al Qaeda The exercise guidebook is operative being held as an enemy available at www.emsa.ca.gov.

combatant; and Christian The rise of the converts actually Swiss intelligence report dated last Ganczarski, a German convert may be a sign of Al Qaeda’s December. arrested in June by French police. weakness, a need to fill a vacuum Ganczarski called Mohammed's Robert and Ganczarski were not as leaders are hunted down. The Swiss cell phone in Pakistan just foot soldiers, investigators say. limited hierarchy of Islamic “numerous times” in the months They represent a dangerous trend networks can make leadership a before the Djerba attack, according as police chop away at Islamic question of circumstance and to the report. initiative. A Spanish investigator networks two years after the Sept. The phone call intercepts also said Al Qaeda has “many soldiers, 11 attacks: converts who assume pointed to a Swiss convert, Daniel some sergeants and the generals.” front-line roles as recruiters and “Yusuf” Morgenej, who had plotters. Ganczarski and Robert were no befriended the German in Saudi The number of converts has grown generals, but they allegedly stepped Arabia, authorities say. Swiss as Islamic militants have struck a up to plot attacks and recruit. And police questioned and released chord with young Europeans from investigators say Ganczarski, 36, Morgenej. But Spanish and French non-Muslim backgrounds. These became a pivotal figure in investigators say he and Ganczarski “protest conversions,” as scholar during the post-Sept. 11 period remain suspected links in an Olivier Roy calls them, have less to because of his alleged ties to intricate chain leading to the plot's do with theology than with a Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Al accused money man, a Spanish revolutionary zeal dating to Qaeda’s now-imprisoned exporter. operational boss, who turned Europe's ultra-left terrorist groups Moreover, the Djerba plot appears increasingly to converts while on of the 1970s and ‘80s. to have been part of a larger effort the run. “The young people in working- led by Mohammed to deploy class urban areas are against the Ganczarski is being held in a converts. Padilla, the American system, and converting to Islam is French jail as a suspected who allegedly schemed to set off a the ultimate way to challenge the conspirator in the bombing of a radioactive bomb, was arrested in system,” said Roy, a director of the Tunisian synagogue that killed 21 Chicago in May 2002 after arriving National Center for Scientific people, including French tourists, from . In the preceding Research in Paris. “They convert to in April 2002. weeks, Padilla placed four calls to stick it to their parents, to their Investigators say Mohammed the same phone number for principal. They convert in the same controlled the plot from Pakistan Mohammed that Ganczarski had way people in the 1970s went to despite the vigilance of U.S. spy called, according to the Swiss Bolivia or Vietnam. I see a very satellites that intercepted some of intelligence report. European tradition of identifying his coded conversations with Ganczarski was born in Gleiwitz, with a Third World cause.” accomplices. To elude detection, he Poland. His family moved to As demographics and immigration used non- in Europe to when he was 9. He propel Islam's spread in Europe, the support the Tunisian suicide dropped out of school and found number of French converts -- the bomber, Nizar Nawar, police say. work as a metallurgist in the Ruhr vast majority of them law-abiding - On the day Nawar blew himself up Valley. It was on the shop floor that - has increased steadily to about in a truck-bomb at the historic a fellow immigrant, a North 100,000, Roy said. synagogue on the island of Djerba, African, introduced him to the Extremists of European descent he called Mohammed in Pakistan, Koran, officials say. worry police for the same reasons investigators say, and Ganczarski’s “Ever since his youth, it appears he that Al Qaeda prizes them: their home in Duisburg, Germany. A was greatly preoccupied with symbolic value, their Western German wiretap recorded the latter questions of faith,” said a senior passports and their fanaticism. call: As if addressing a mentor, French law enforcement official. Nawar asked Ganczarski for a “Converts are the most important His radicalization accelerated when blessing, investigators say. work for us right now,” a French he met a Saudi cleric visiting intelligence official said. “They Although the Germans lacked proof European mosques in search of want to show other their to arrest Ganczarski, who denied Western-born acolytes. In 1992, worth. They want to go further than involvement in the attack, the Ganczarski received a scholarship anyone else. They are full of rage widening investigation soon to attend an Islamic university in and they want to prove involved French, Spanish and Medina, Saudi Arabia, the senior themselves.” Swiss police. It revealed official said. Ganczarski’s access to Al Qaeda's “hard core,” in the words of a

Ganczarski spent three frustrating the financier” of the plot, according French and immigrant youths years in Medina. He took special to French Interior Minister Nicolas because it used the best field in courses to overcome his lack of Sarkozy, who described the town. schooling, but failed to enter the German as “a high-ranking member The Turks of Andrezieux, who university, the senior official said. of Al Qaeda.” describe themselves as moderate Yet his zeal did not seem to waver. Ganczarski found refuge for a time Muslims, remember Robert as a He traveled to Afghanistan in 1998 in Saudi Arabia, where he took his silent kid crouching off by himself - the first of four sojourns - trained family last November. But after in the mosque. Like many converts, at an Al Qaeda camp and saw this year’s terrorist attacks on he had struggled with “drinking, combat there and in Russia's expatriate compounds in Riyadh stupid things” and yearned for breakaway republic of Chechnya, put pressure on the Saudis, they discipline and purpose, said Tekeli, officials say. expelled him to France. Under 35, a veteran union activist. Ganczarski met Osama bin Laden tough anti-terrorism laws, Judge “In Europe you have everything and other Al Qaeda leaders, who Jean-Louis Bruguiere has accused you need: work, health benefits, entrusted him with handling Ganczarski in the Djerba attack family,” he said. “Yet something is computers and communications, based on his alleged ties to the missing. People find it in religion. the senior official said. Bin Laden plotters, and has at least two years And Islam is the religion that is saw converts as “an especially to bring him to trial. Authorities are growing. The French young people potent weapon,” the official said. also interested in the fact that are more open than their parents.” Ganczarski had phone numbers for Returning from Afghanistan after Robert’s stunned father called his two imprisoned members of the the Sept. 11 attacks, Ganczarski change of faith “a betrayal,” Tekeli Hamburg cell that planned the Sept. persisted in trying to organize plots said. But when Robert turned 18 11 attacks. even after the Tunisian case drew and decided to study Islam in attention to him, officials say. Ganczarski’s alleged access to the Turkey, his parents paid for the inner circle is not surprising. Al An alleged accomplice from trip. Robert traveled to Konya, a Qaeda has embraced true believers Duisburg has told French center of tourism and religion that regardless of ethnicity. Just as interrogators that Ganczarski began is a magnet for European converts. many converts marry Muslim preparations for an attack on the When Robert returned to France in women, some terrorism suspects of U.S. Embassy in Paris. Karim 1992, the French intelligence Arab origin have European wives, Mehdi said the two explored a official said, he complained that who often equal them in technique developed by Turkey was “too secular.” ideological ferocity. Mohammed in Afghanistan. It He went to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan “The Ganczarskis, the Roberts, involved packing model planes and Afghanistan, where in the mid- they show that the radicalization is with 3 or 4 kilos of explosives and 1990s he trained at a camp run by here, not just in the Middle East,” diving them into a building by Al Qaeda, according to French and said Roy, the French scholar. If Al remote control, according to the Spanish investigators. senior French official. Qaeda’s urbanized, globalized jihad continues to attract angry He also married a Moroccan “They got as far as acquiring Europeans, the network could gain woman and began wandering material,” the official said. “They a “second wind,” he said. between Europe and . did a lot of research on planes in They came to Chambles for an Robert, 31, could be a case in point. Germany. You can pilot these extended stay about seven years Like Ganczarski, the Frenchman planes from a mile away. The ago, living at his parents’ house represents a breed of blue-collar embassy is a double target - you hit before renting apartments around convert - neither jailhouse recruit the French and Americans in one the nearby city of St. Etienne, a nor university radical. blow.” fading landscape of shuttered arms U.S. officials declined to comment, He grew up in the French hamlet of factories and abandoned coal citing a policy of not discussing Chambles. His studies ended at mines. Anne Frank Middle School in threats to embassies. Robert had acquired a beard, Andrezieux, the industrial town just Mehdi also admitted scouting traditional Islamic garb and the down the hill where his father targets for a planned car bombing name Yacub. During visits in 1999 worked at a glass factory. The at tourist sites on Reunion Island, a and 2000 to an Islamic bookstore in teenager made Turkish friends French territory in the Indian St. Etienne, he impressed the doing spot jobs in textile plants and Ocean, officials say. Mehdi said manager with his and his playing in the Turkish soccer Ganczarski was an “organizer and religious knowledge. league, which was popular with

“He knew more than me,” said the Investigators say Robert was part manager, Ahmed Abdelouadoud. of a strategy of “training the Robert’s aggressive ideas caused trainers” – a model of how an conflict even at fundamentalist increasingly decentralized Al mosques, the intelligence official Qaeda will function. The network said. He became an itinerant late- exported terrorism to Morocco night preacher in housing projects, through a handful of recruiters who Tekeli said. quickly whipped locals into killing shape, officials say. He also got involved in the used- car racket in which Islamic Robert also wanted to bring his war extremists are active, buying cars in home to France, police say. He and Europe for resale in Morocco. In Abdulaziz Benayich, a die-hard 1998, he was jailed in on holy warrior with longtime ties to suspicion of auto theft. European terrorist cells, schemed about using a bazooka or rocket- That was nothing compared with propelled grenade on targets his clandestine activity in Tangier, including a giant refinery and a the Moroccan smuggling haven plutonium shipment near Lyon, where Robert, by then a father of about an hour from Robert's two, spent most of his time the last hometown, investigators say. two years. He was convicted Thursday of recruiting several When Spanish police captured dozen young men for terrorist cells Benayich in June in Algeciras, he set up in Tangier and Fez. across the strait of Gibraltar from Morocco, he had shaved off his Robert’s Al Qaeda credentials body hair – as is done in a crossed cultural borders: The group purification ritual that precedes made him its “emir.” He led suicide attacks. weapons training sessions in forests and deserts, according to the court's “He was preparing for an attack,” a verdict. Spanish police commander said. “Benayich is very dangerous.” Then came the May 16 suicide bombings that killed 45 people in Although some French officials Casablanca, the worst attack ever in feel Robert’s threat has been Morocco, a kingdom that prides exaggerated, he narrowly avoided itself on its relative tolerance. the death penalty that was Police rounded up hundreds of requested by prosecutors. extremists, catching Robert in a His old friends have watched the forest at the wheel of a pickup news reports. Robert looked truck with fake Dutch plates. exhausted in court, a pale figure Authorities charged that he served surrounded by guards. He had as a leader of a network that had shaved his beard. One day he wore planned a coming wave of attacks the red and yellow jersey of on tourist and commercial targets. Galatasaray, a Turkish soccer team. After initially confessing, Robert At that moment, the “blue-eyed denied it all and said he had been emir” resembled the 17-year-old tortured because police needed a his friends remember: crouched foreign fall guy. over the handlebars on his way to “I am the victim of a frame-up by town, praying to Allah, gathering the security services,” he said in a speed. statement relayed by his lawyer. Robert also testified during his trial that he had worked as an informant for French intelligence, a claim French officials denied.