Over the past several months, the Soldiers, NCOs, and officers of 51st Expeditionary Signal Battalion – Enhanced (ESB-E) have had the distinct privilege to put the Scalable Network Node (SNN) into system in the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) Area of Operation, being the first ESB-E to deploy as a battalion under hostile conditions, supporting critical air defense and logistics operations across Southwest Asia.
For many Soldiers, it is their first time in austere environments meeting challenges and overcoming them with skill and gravitas. However, it is not just the Soldiers and leaders of the 51st being tested. This deployment is the first time that the SNNs have faced such a demanding environment, with over 30 nodes actively supporting users across an entire combatant command. The SNNs have been put to the test, facing soaring temperatures and harsh wind and sandstorms. In this process, the Soldiers and leaders of the 51st have learned a truly significant amount about these new systems. They’ve developed crucial tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) and built critical experiences to share with the signal community while providing invaluable feedback to the multiple fielding projects that have fed into the conversion to an ESB-E.
Out of the many lessons learned from the deployment, perhaps the most important lesson learned is the importance of both institutional and unit investments into the education of our junior Soldiers and officers. The signal community must heavily invest in the education of our junior Soldiers, NCOs, and officers; particularly senior NCOs and junior officers at the company level. While it is true that these populations will not necessarily be directly behind the keyboard troubleshooting outages, platoon and company-level leaders, without complete understanding of their equipment, often result in the inability to fully approach the complexities of networking and the ways in which these systems function. An informed, technically adept company-level leader is better able to plan missions and talk to their supported customers, serving as the critical interface point between the teams that they lead and the customers who are often not signal-inclined or technically savvy.
No comments:
Post a Comment