Delaware National
Guard
Grecian
Firebolt tests Homeland Security commoBy Chris Walz, Army News Service, Fort Meade Public Affairs Office
This
year's annual Grecian Firebolt exercise tested a worldwide communications network that could be used for Homeland Security."We are basically AT&T for the Army, with a lot of encryption," said node switcher, Pvt. Leland Hughes, a member of the 280th Signal Battalion from Wilmington, Del. "We want to make sure this system can talk to that system hundreds of miles away."
The Federal Emergency Management Agency joined the month-long exercise that ends this week as part of the Homeland Security scenario, and so did the U.S. Joint Forces Command.
FEMA directors said they like the Army's signal reliability and the versatility of using several communication paths. They also like any path increasing their speed of contacting the Department of Defense.
"We want to stay in a readiness posture, especially after 9-11," said Ozzie Baldwin, the telecommunications manager at the Texas Mobile Emergency Response Support office. "Now we know that we have several ways of communicating. It's reassuring to know we can contact the [DoD] should a crisis or emergency situation come up."
U.S. Joint Forces Command was involved in the exercise to observe the interoperability between Army and Air Force communications assets. The command is evaluating the infrastructure for a Homeland Security defense communications template.
"Everybody is pushing for joint efforts and joint communications," said Maj. Anthony Britton, from the Joint Forces Command. "There's not much in the military anymore that is just Army-specific or Air Force-specific."
"Single-service missions are a thing of the past," agreed the commander of the 311th Theater Signal Command, Maj. Gen. George Bowman. "We are looking wider and broader and helping one another in order to keep America's freedoms."
The exercise, which began June 1 and concludes this week, costs approximately $1.2 million dollars budgeted annually by reserve-component units participating in it.
"In the past, the Army couldn't communicate with the Air Force or the Navy, and vice versa," said Bowman. "We're not completely there yet. That's why we have these exercises - to see what we need to do to make it all work."
Another purpose of the exercise is to give reserve-component signal troops valuable time with the equipment.
"We need to know what to do in a wartime situation," said satellite operator Senior Airman Paul Rolla. "Satellite time is limited, so we need to take advantage of the time we have with the equipment."
Troops at Fort Meade did experience minor technical difficulties over the month-long Grecian Firebolt exercise, most stemming from the sweltering heat and equipment age, Hughes said.
"We had some minor problems, but that's the purpose of these training exercises. We need to learn how to fix these problems," Hughes said. "I've learned more in this exercise than I have in the past five years."