When most of us make a 911 call, we expect a local dispatcher to plug us into an emergency medical service, fire station or police immediately.

When the son of a Senoia woman responded to a recent 911 call of sorts, he found himself on an 18-hour plane ride and a 6,000-mile jaunt that put him smack dab in the middle of a tropical jungle.

Army Spec. William Marquess, son of Margaret Helman, 110 Domino Court in Senoia, left his Alaska-based unit to drop in via parachute as part of a joint U.S. and Thai exercise called "Black Tiger."

Marquess is a machine gunner for the First Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment, a unit that has been designated as a crisis reaction force, a 911 of sorts, for the entire Pacific region. They may respond to American evacuation in a foreign country, help with humanitarian assistance during a natural disaster or crisis, or jump in for combat operations.

The exercise was designed to test his crisis reaction reflexes and determine how quickly Marquess and his fellow soldiers could evacuate American non-combatants from a simulated situation that depicted a typhoon and acts of violence and looting .

Before the exercise began, a group of 42 Royal Thai paratroopers traveled to Alaska to integrate with the American unit.

"We had two Thai soldiers with my platoon. I wasn't able to interact with them as much as I would have liked, but I did learn some things about their military and culture," said Marquess.