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Let me take a moment to say that I only see my sphere and scope of the Army. I am sure there are other units out there that are still knowledgeable and have exceptional signal leaders. I also want to mention that in no way is this a direct reflection on units as a whole including my own.
If you’re not Signal (specifically 25N, 25Q & possibly 25S, 25B) you might not understand what I am saying.
Anyone who was in during MSE should distinctly remember ARTEP (Army Training and Evaluation Program). When WIN-T replaced MSE that standard that so many of us knew went away. There are justifiable reasons for this; speed of change, complexity of equipment and new MTOE standards. I understand why it was never redone to work with WIN-T.
What I do not understand is why the very fundamentals of our jobs have been forgotten. How no one understands the value of crew drills (or even knows what it is), cross training, proper grounding procedures, site security & defense, equipment preparation, convoy operations, site briefs, night time operations, tactical vs. strategic site layouts, HCLOS is never used, no networking standards are ever used, priorities of work, PACE plans, tactical discipline, jumping, recovery operations, what the DC power cable is and why you need it (completely serious) and maintenance (for instance know why keeping your generator level is important) to just get started.
I was on a Special Duty assignment for 6 years and left big Army when WIN-T was just being implemented. So I am out of the “know” so to speak as to what happened during this time frame. I have been seeing it lately from a position where I oversee many different teams and units.
There are so many other things such as the “tricks of the trade” that are known by older guys like duct taping tent stakes to a wooden sledge hammer to prevent your sledge from breaking.
I have been talking with many of my peers over the last month and even some Warrants and Officers. This appears to be larger than just what I see in my area of influence, and there are others who have went a step farther than me and actually acted on this topic such as this website: http://www.signal-chief.com. There Chief Troy discusses broader issues and tries to present units with lessons learned prior to deploying. While he does a remarkable job and has exceptional insight, I want NCOs to tell me what happened to where the rubber meets the road: signal team leaders.
This concerns me greatly because quite frankly this is what I was raised on and it’s what I know. If we have to do another invasion like OIF1, where we are not on a FOB for the entire deployment and the hazards are more than the occasional mortar round then NCOs I’ll be blunt.
It’s not going to turn out well.
Our chiefs are going to lose their #### on NCOs and Soldiers, NCOs will be getting relief of causes, and whole units will probably get bad images.
I don’t blame these young soldiers, and I really don’t want to blame the NCOs (and sometimes can’t because they themselves were never properly trained).
So help me out, what’s your take on this.
If you’re not Signal (specifically 25N, 25Q & possibly 25S, 25B) you might not understand what I am saying.
Anyone who was in during MSE should distinctly remember ARTEP (Army Training and Evaluation Program). When WIN-T replaced MSE that standard that so many of us knew went away. There are justifiable reasons for this; speed of change, complexity of equipment and new MTOE standards. I understand why it was never redone to work with WIN-T.
What I do not understand is why the very fundamentals of our jobs have been forgotten. How no one understands the value of crew drills (or even knows what it is), cross training, proper grounding procedures, site security & defense, equipment preparation, convoy operations, site briefs, night time operations, tactical vs. strategic site layouts, HCLOS is never used, no networking standards are ever used, priorities of work, PACE plans, tactical discipline, jumping, recovery operations, what the DC power cable is and why you need it (completely serious) and maintenance (for instance know why keeping your generator level is important) to just get started.
I was on a Special Duty assignment for 6 years and left big Army when WIN-T was just being implemented. So I am out of the “know” so to speak as to what happened during this time frame. I have been seeing it lately from a position where I oversee many different teams and units.
There are so many other things such as the “tricks of the trade” that are known by older guys like duct taping tent stakes to a wooden sledge hammer to prevent your sledge from breaking.
I have been talking with many of my peers over the last month and even some Warrants and Officers. This appears to be larger than just what I see in my area of influence, and there are others who have went a step farther than me and actually acted on this topic such as this website: http://www.signal-chief.com. There Chief Troy discusses broader issues and tries to present units with lessons learned prior to deploying. While he does a remarkable job and has exceptional insight, I want NCOs to tell me what happened to where the rubber meets the road: signal team leaders.
This concerns me greatly because quite frankly this is what I was raised on and it’s what I know. If we have to do another invasion like OIF1, where we are not on a FOB for the entire deployment and the hazards are more than the occasional mortar round then NCOs I’ll be blunt.
It’s not going to turn out well.
Our chiefs are going to lose their #### on NCOs and Soldiers, NCOs will be getting relief of causes, and whole units will probably get bad images.
I don’t blame these young soldiers, and I really don’t want to blame the NCOs (and sometimes can’t because they themselves were never properly trained).
So help me out, what’s your take on this.
Signal Corps
Team Leader
25N: Nodal Network Systems Operators/Maintainer
25Q: Multichannel Transmission Systems Operator/Maintainer
25W: Telecommunications Operations Chief
Posted 11 y ago
Responses: 35
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It hasn't all changed there are some units that still do cross-training and crew drills. But my honest opinion comes from when the transition from MSE to WIN-T happened we added a lot more civilians to the mix and now some units are scared to do certain things like that because we no longer fix our own equipment anymore. I'm currently deployed and work in a TIB (Tactical Control Facility in a Box) and we can't even access our own routers anymore and now have civilians that do all of our routing and switching. Even before the deployment I was a Baseband Crew chief and the first thing I was told was anything happens call General Dynamics don't fix it yourself. We lost track of the fix it yourself and focused more on getting ready to deploy and doing the bare minimum to train soldiers on equipment. Focusing on the NCOs and what happened with that is a lot of them don't know the equipment. We're so spread out as a branch you'll be a private in an infantry or artillery unit as a November working on radios then get promoted to SGT and go to a Signal unit in charge of a JNN or HECLOS and have no idea how to work the equipment.
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I understand what you are saying and saw it happen with my own eyes. I caught the very end of MSE. I spent some field problems in a V3 shelter. I was an E4 and saw MSE fade away as WIN-T rolled in. I was trained for 25B on the CPN then later as a 25Q we were expected to operate the STT. As I moved from SPC to SGT I tried to enforce the standards from MSE that had been instilled in me. Standards like grounding and leveling the generator. Shift change briefs, tactical setup and drills. The Soldiers around me looked at me like I was crazy. My leadership looked at me like I was crazy. The problem is multifaceted. You have senior nco's undermining junior nco's for various reasons, including lack of trust and as a way to maintain authority. You have new Soldiers that don't know the standard but are indignant of the jr. nco 's authority. Most times they can't challenge the senior nco (unless they are a weak nco) so they challenge the jr. They want to do things their way all the time. You try to discipline them but without senior backing you are stuck. Some of your Soldiers get in Army knowing more than you do. WIN-T with civilian equipment opened that door. It was possible to have a Soldier that worked on cisco routers and switches on the outside and simply knew more then their leadership. This undermines the leadership if the Soldier is not keen to follow orders and wants to take advantage of what they know in a negative undisciplined way. Signal units by choice of Big Army were downsized and put at the mercy of combat arms units. As attached Soldiers on a CPN, my team chief had very little power. My signal section chief from the combat arms unit had little power. My SIGO had little power. It was a shit storm to say the least. I went to ALC at Ft. Gordon thinking I would finally get the training I needed. No luck. Will we train on Tropo? Not allowed. Will we train on the new STT. STT is down with a battery issue. Will we train on HCLOS? We have a computer simulator. We did train on networks and ip schemes. We cut grass everyday, performed barracks and exterior maintenance and performed any other detail we were assigned. This was the emphasis. I believe all these factors have lead to the disarray the Signal Corp is now in.
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All great points SSG Harvey...good to see you here by the way! I will say this...the photo you included here is of my old battalion, the 86th ESB. I just left there October of 2014 and I do have to say that growing up in MSE it was truly frustrating to see those same issues when I initially got assigned there in July of 2010. Over the course of my tour there the leadership and the techs got in the weeds and actually started training ALL of the troops. From the Section Chiefs down to the team members. With the 86th taking on the responsibility of supporting NIE, those issues slowly began to disappear. I will say that when I left, the companies that were responsible for supporting NIE were quite proficient, not only with the basic tasks like grounding, but the technical side as well. It takes involvement from the top down to correct this issue meaning that us "old dogs" have to get in the weeds and fix those issues. In the end...the rewards we reap are quite bountiful!
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SFC Steven Harvey
SFC Alvarez rally point added the pic.
I was not trying to label anyone or unit but with guys like us with our past it is noticeable.
Like I said I am confident there are units that are experts at their craft but it's apparent that the old "art form" is gone.
I was not trying to label anyone or unit but with guys like us with our past it is noticeable.
Like I said I am confident there are units that are experts at their craft but it's apparent that the old "art form" is gone.
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SFC (Join to see)
I agree...for the most part. Not everywhere thankfully! If you're out in DC look me up. I'll buy you a beer and catch up.
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SFC Steven Harvey
I was at WHCA for 6 years on Bolling AFB, I won't be coming back for a long time if ever.
It was a good assignment but hurt my career in the long run. I was there way too long.
It was a good assignment but hurt my career in the long run. I was there way too long.
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As a younger Signal guy a lot of what happened is easy to see, I got in the army around 07' so more towards the middle of OEF. I got in my unit only to look around and see how many people were getting out many of them with 3+ deployments done, much of them lower enlisted or sgt level.
Some were out due to burn out whether that be the families or their own doing back to back deployments, numerous guys had injuries (physical or mental like ptsd) or many had gotten job offers to be military contractors for way more money then the army would pay for several years in one year.
As a war/conflict goes on standards ALWAYS drop, all the training or equipment will not get you more bodies to operate said positions or equipment. Like the saying goes Quality or Quantity, well the military as a whole always picks Quantity then Quality when the peace time rolls in. With quantity you have to train like a cookie cutter basically then throw them to the deep end and let the units do the rest, they just didn't know/care units were not doing it down the line. Leadership is highly responsible but its also leaderships leadership that is even more so, contractors became so normal (prob. because high up leadership they knew) since the lower enlisted became below the standard "cookie cut" trained they needed contractors (former military or collage educated in communications) to be the backbone holding up the corpse called the signal corp. I have used equipment like tropo, stt, jnn, los, hclos, and prob stuff I should have not even touched because I was not mos trained for it but the need we so great they let me anyways.......*cough...the military intels phoenix...cough*
Some were out due to burn out whether that be the families or their own doing back to back deployments, numerous guys had injuries (physical or mental like ptsd) or many had gotten job offers to be military contractors for way more money then the army would pay for several years in one year.
As a war/conflict goes on standards ALWAYS drop, all the training or equipment will not get you more bodies to operate said positions or equipment. Like the saying goes Quality or Quantity, well the military as a whole always picks Quantity then Quality when the peace time rolls in. With quantity you have to train like a cookie cutter basically then throw them to the deep end and let the units do the rest, they just didn't know/care units were not doing it down the line. Leadership is highly responsible but its also leaderships leadership that is even more so, contractors became so normal (prob. because high up leadership they knew) since the lower enlisted became below the standard "cookie cut" trained they needed contractors (former military or collage educated in communications) to be the backbone holding up the corpse called the signal corp. I have used equipment like tropo, stt, jnn, los, hclos, and prob stuff I should have not even touched because I was not mos trained for it but the need we so great they let me anyways.......*cough...the military intels phoenix...cough*
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Sounds like the problem begins with Fort Gordon -- what are they teaching our newest Soldiers? What is going on with the NCO courses?
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SPC(P) (Join to see)
Problem not with CECOM or GENDYN its in quality of instructors/ teachers. My Signal Core "School" experience is different but My instructors were either multiple MOS or going to school for IT.
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1LT (Join to see)
The soldier's I've received straight from Gordon have all required extensive training to reach a moderately proficient level on our equipment. That said when my brigade had LPD with General Dynamics at Gordon it became clear that they only train the soldiers to work on perfectly functional equipment. Learning from cutsheets and completely bypassing troubleshooting methodology. It's a tough skill to learn and it would be great if it was started in AIT but from what we can tell it isn't.
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1SG(P) (Join to see)
SSG(P) (Join to see) - SSG Byron, the problem is beyond instructors. If a soldiers is trained all the basics on out dated equipment what did he/ acquire? Granted teaching basic networking is more important than teaching JNN or TCN because a switch is a switch and a router is a router. When a soldier does not know signal flow and basic signal soldier skills becomes problematic. Lastly, the worse thing Fort Gordon is doing is relying on CBT to train soldiers rather than the real equipment. Simply an error.
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SFC (Join to see)
Ft. Gordon isn't the problem, (1) is funding, manpower (TDA/MTOEs) and resources our military schools (QUIT CUTTING IT big Army and starting sending the new equipment to the schoolhouse, because the schoolhouse is only as effective as the equip. rec'd to train on and this takes money), (2) is really looking into the quality of experience of our instructors both military and civilians we have there - we (i.e our gov contractors who won these contracts to teach) need to hire more war/FTX/deplymnt/rotations etc.. "experience". veterans and I hate to say it because I didn't want to come back to Gordon but we need the exp. NCOs to come back and teach the new soldiers/ncos/officers "they are hungry for the knowledge & mentorship" even if you have them for 2mths at a time - they remember I didn't think they would but they do. and (3) Go back training our SGT/SSG/SFC quit cutting the schools - Long ago as a SGL I watch the NCOPDES (NCOES) be cut down from 3mths to 4 weeks & 5 days and the whiskey course cut down to 2mths New NCOs need the foundational leadership (weather they believe in it or not this is the time they need to not only learn the curriculum, but also from their peers and to network) to become more seasoned and better qualified leaders to train and mentor our new 2LT (to a more flexible, knowledgeable of soldiers and admin), young privates into Specialist, into strong level headed buck Sergeants (and I say Buck Sergeant with compassion & admiration not insult), to train my Staff Sergeants and pass knowledge to my peers & supervisors. Anyhow these are just my opinions.
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