Spartan signaleers get the message through

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Jack Sanders
  • JBER Public Affairs
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  Since the beginning of military history, getting the message through has been an essential part of military operations.

Whether it was Paul Revere riding through New England yelling, "The British are coming!" or messenger pigeons delivering notes, communications have
been a large part of the military world.

Signal Soldiers from all units of 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division participated in a two-week digital exercise where they established and maintained a live network in preparation for an upcoming field training exercise, a rotation to the Joint Readiness Training Center, Fort Polk, La., and to maintain deployment readiness.

"This is the initial push for each of the battalions for the FTX," said Sgt. Bryon Moss, systems data integrator. "The DIGEX will allow for some of the new Soldiers a chance to work with the system and allow some of the Soldiers that were on the last deployment to share their knowledge."

"We're about a month away from our FTX and about three months to the Joint Readiness Training Center, and we a lot of younger Soldiers that have never touched this common stuff they'll see downrange."

The exercise was run and operated solely by signal Soldiers.

During normal exercises, signal Soldiers can become entangled in technical aspects of establishing a network, and accomplishing the mission can become challenging, Moss explained.
 
"It's just signaleers training signaleers on how to become more proficient in their systems, so that when their command groups are here, they know what to do," Moss said.

"The exercise is going really well," said Army Maj. Brian Collins, 4-25th ABCT communications officer. "This DIGEX is not a (Department of the Army) directed exercise.
 
We prepared this ourselves from scratch. The purpose of this digital exercise is to bring the battalions up to a level where they can succeed in future exercises."

"The Digital Exercise is going to set us up for success," Collins said. "We're getting a lot of great feedback from people saying, 'Hey, we haven't seen this before.' And we came up with this whole concept because it's not done primarily in the Army... This gave the signalers the chance to get all their bugs out during this exercise."

While the main goal for the DIGEX was training, the signaleers also worked on removing any small problems they may encounter with the network and supporting equipment.

They will be taking the DIGEX set with them to the upcoming FTX and on their next JRTC rotation.

"I can actually call into Afghanistan right now," said Chief Warrant Officer Brett Coffman, Network Operations officer in charge. "We are set up, I mean this is a hot network, what we call 'hot,' meaning all the services are live. We have real live (secure communications).

We have real live (nonsecure communications). We're tied into the global internet grid."

Running a live system during the DIGEX means the Soldiers must exercise counter and safety measures just as they would in a deployed scenario. Doing it at the DIGEX meant they were doing it in a controlled environment.

It's been decades and centuries since the times of messenger-pigeons and Paul Revere, but communications still plays a vital role in military life during the digital age.