Exercise tests comms for Homeland Defense, War on Terrorism
Army News Service
Release Date: 6/24/2003
By Patrick Swan June 24, 200
FORT MEADE, Md. (Army News Service, June 24, 2003) -- The world's largest peacetime communication exercise, Grecian Firebolt '03, tested new communication systems to protect the U.S. homeland and win the Global War on Terrorism June 9-20.
"Striking Back With Connectivity," this year's theme, defined the GF '03 mission for installing, operating, maintaining, and protecting a communications network.
A secure network allows war fighters anywhere in the world to put "steel on target" to win the nation's wars, said Maj. Richard DuBreuil, the officer in charge of the Theater Communications Control Center. It also assists federal agencies to deny terrorists opportunities in the American homeland, he said.
The 311th Theater Signal Command, an Army Reserve unit based at Fort Meade, Md., ran the overall exercise, which connected several stateside posts, plus one in Hawaii and another in the Republic of South Korea.
"We employed several new systems, most of which are from the commercial world or what we term as commercial off-the-shelf equipment, or COTS," DuBreuil said. "We also rediscovered some old capabilities, such as High Frequency, or HF, for our single-channel communications."
Besides HF, GF '03 employed such communications modes as unclassified (NIPR) and classified (SIPR) voice and data, and video teleconferencing.
And, DuBreuil said, "We used the Defense Collaborative Tool Suite, or DCTS, to communicate with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. This provided an important platform for testing interoperability with each other."
"Being a signal unit, this is (just) the type of exercise we need to test ourselves," said Spc. Jason Mead, of the 261st Signal Brigade, operating at Fort Dix, N.J. "If it doesn't work, we know we need to fix it."
The 311th TSC's commanding general, Maj. Gen. George F. Bowman, said, "Grecian Firebolt '03 is a key training element in helping the Army determine its future theater signal communication requirements. The Army appreciates this. That's why we received the most funding of any Reserve exercise (about $1.4 million) this year. This allowed us to get the tools we and our supporting signal units needed to stay current with active-component systems and on par with war fighters' demands around the world."
Using some of that new communications equipment, Bowman placed the first phone call in the Army Reserve using voice-over Internet protocol. On June 13, he spoke to Brig. Gen. Jan Hicks, chief of the Army Signal School at Fort Gordon, Ga.
Using voice-over IP was just one example of how this year's exercise was different from previous ones. Brig. Gen. James Dougherty, commander of the 261st Signal Brigade, which worked primarily out of Fort Dix, N.J., said this year's mission was also different due to conflicts overseas.
"There was a different pace this year; a lot of units from last year that we worked with are now in Southwest Asia," Dougherty said. "It shows the importance of the work we do and it was great to see the young leaders develop.
"We take people out of their homes, out of their civilian mindset and then we work them (for) long, hard hours," he said, "The fact that there were no (negative) safety issues was tremendous."
Some of those supporting signal units hailed from the Air National Guard -- the 103rd Air Control Squadron, from Connnecticut, and the 285th Combat Communications Squadron from St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.
The 319th Signal Battalion trained its soldiers at Fort McCoy, Wis., in support of GF '03.
Pfc. Robert Parra, a multichannel transmission systems operator-maintainer, said Fort McCoy's unique landscape provided favorable locations to set up and use their equipment.
Spc. Carlos Nazario added that the 24-hour scenario allowed unit members to provide services, receive customer feedback and make adjustments, as necessary, based on that feedback to better serve customers.
1st Lt. David Levy, an automation officer for the 3rd Medical Command of Decatur, Ga., said the 319th's communications support allowed for much faster communications than the unit could have had otherwise. The 3rd MEDCOM spearheaded Operation Golden Medic 2003.
"It helped us get the information in a more real-time (basis)," Levy said. "We needed the information as quickly as possible to move patients and coordinate those movements. They gave us outstanding support."
The 35th Signal Battalion, which staged its first deployment stateside from its home base in Puerto Rico in 14 years, supported Golden Medic from Fort Gordon, Ga.
"Getting all the units together is a good idea," said Sgt. Cesar Del Valle, 35th Signal Battalion. "I would like to see (even) more realism in the training, especially more (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) training."
At a Fort Meade graduation ceremony June 17, Bowman said the 311th's Cisco Networking Academy supported both network operations and information assurance measures.
"This allowed us to apply all the modern IA processes and tools at our disposal," Bowman said. "We're doing all this while the Army is at war. We are taking the lessons learned from the field and then refocusing on what skill sets our soldiers need to have to support the commanders in the field."
Bowman said graduating the first class at the Cisco Academy, which happened mid-way through GF '03, was the culmination of several years of planning and effort.
"I feel like a proud parent," Bowman said. ".These graduates will one day leave us, but they will take the vast expertise learned at this academy to benefit the Army as a whole."
(Editor's note: Soldiers from the 444th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment and Fort Meade Soundoff! reporter Suzan Holl provided some material used in this article.)
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