FORT HUACHUCA, Ariz. – Army Chief of Staff Gen. James C. McConville visited Wednesday for a personal tour of local initiatives which further the Army’s priorities, including the RAPID Escape Room and the synchronization of the installation’s airspace and spectrum to support multi-domain operations testing and training.
The Army’s priorities of people, readiness and modernization are rooted in the way Team Huachuca approaches innovation.
Directly linked to the Army’s number one priority – people – is the Resiliency, Awareness, Prevention, Inclusion and Diversity (RAPID) Escape Room, the brainchild of Sgt. 1st Class Saquawia V. Pennington, sexual assault response coordinator, 111th Military Intelligence Brigade. The training provides a unique approach to teaching Soldiers how to prevent sexual harassment/assault and discrimination, and addresses resilience issues that often accompany these toxic behaviors.
Pennington designed the interactive training in a series of eight rooms linked together by puzzles and mysteries that support each RAPID area of concern.
“This training platform allows for a unique approach to conceptualize key Sexual Harassment/Assault Response & Prevention [SHARP], Military Equal Opportunity, resiliency and prevention tools,” Pennington explained.
Small teams of Soldiers first enter the Motivator/In-Brief Room where a facilitator mentally prepares participants for candid discussions and provides instruction, she explained. Subsequent rooms involve team challenges requiring participants to work together. Soldier peers serve as facilitators who guide the teams and assist with the uncomfortable conversations resulting from the scenarios.
The clues and storylines keep participants engaged and increasingly invested in the characters. Ultimately, participants are intrinsically motivated to self-reflect and become active bystanders who exemplify positive norms.
“This method enables participants to build confidence in themselves, their team, their community and Army programs,” Pennington explained.
After experiencing the escape room, McConville met with Soldier facilitators of all ranks, including cadre, advanced individual trainees, Military Intelligence Basic Officer Leader Course students and unit Sexual Assault Response Coordinators, or SARCs.
“Our Soldiers all have parents who have sent their sons and daughters to us,” he said reflecting on his own three children who are currently serving. “This is why this is so important. This is good because you can feel it.
“We want our young people to love the Army. It is about people. It can be hard, but that’s what we do. You can go through the hardest things sometimes, and that’s where you make the strongest relationships is with the person to your left and right, your brothers and sisters.”
With the focus on bystander intervention, we’ve seen an increase in cohesion and teamwork at all levels, said Stacy Picciano, program manager, Network Enterprise Technology Command SHARP.
“People who once walked by and asked, ‘How are you doing?’ but didn’t even wait for a response, are now checking in with their teammates and actually listening and hearing them,” she explained.
The 111th Military Intelligence Brigade has also included the RAPID Escape Room as part of the inprocessing for Soldiers transitioning from basic training to advanced individual training.
“It’s not only made an impact on our platoon, but the understanding of equal opportunity, SHARP and suicide awareness is flowing out to the battalions at the lowest level,” said Staff Sgt. Kody Crowl, drill sergeant, Holds Company, 111th MI Bde.
“This new generation of MI Soldiers is breaking the stigma that seeking help is a weakness,” he added.
They have a sense of empowerment and have a voice; they know who the unit chaplain is and how to ask for help from behavioral health, Crowl explained.
“What we want to do is build cohesive teams that are highly trained, disciplined and fit,” said McConville during a leader professional development session here. “We want to sustain a culture of respect, trust and discipline where everyone takes care of each other.
“What we want to prevent are behaviors that harm Soldiers and break trust with the American people.”
“Putting people first means taking care of our people so our people can remain ready and transform for the future,” the chief of staff said during the recent Association of the U.S. Army Annual Meeting & Exposition.
He noted that in addition to people, readiness and modernization are still top priorities as well.
“Winning matters,” McConville emphasized. “There is no honorable mention in combat. We owe it to our troops to know what winning looks like.
“You will be called up and you’ll need to be ready, and your Soldiers will need to be ready at a moments notice.”
McConville’s visit came on the heels of his recent visit to the Army’s Project Convergence 21 (PC21) capstone event at Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., where Army and Joint service partners assessed key network capabilities that increase communications resiliency, range extension and data management. Modernization capabilities such as augmented virtual reality and training in synthetic environments is the way of the future, the chief of staff explained.
As Army and Joint service experts at PC21 experiment with new technologies and tactics for integrating weapons systems and command and control systems to communicate across all domains, Team Huachuca is modernizing the way it conducts and synchronizes range operations.
“Building on its long history as an Army test center and its expansive restricted airspace, the installation is primed to leverage its key capabilities in support of multi-domain operations,” said Jeffrey Jennings, deputy to the commanding general, U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence.
Test organizations here, including the Electronic Proving Ground which reopened the fort in 1954 and the Joint Interoperability Test Command, are able to operate daily within a quiet electromagnetic spectrum supporting the national defense mission because the Buffalo Soldier Electronic Test Range is the only electronic range in the Army protected by state statute.
The 2,500-square-mile electronic range and 946 square miles of restricted airspace are the foundation of the fort’s latest initiative to develop a range complex representing current and future threat capabilities and activities across cyber, space and the electromagnetic spectrum to train, test and evaluate in a multi-domain environment.
“The lack of commercial air traffic and our collaborative relationships with federal agencies, such as the Sentinel Landscape Partnership, are integral to our modernization efforts,” Jennings said.
As home to one of the largest unmanned aircraft systems training facilities in the world and 33 additional training areas, this range complex would allow units from across the Army and Joint services to test, train and synchronize capabilities, said Col. Jarrod Moreland, garrison commander, U.S. Army Garrison Fort Huachuca.
“We are doing a deep dive into all aspects of this modernization effort, from communication and connectivity to spectrum and staffing, to meet complex requirements,” Moreland emphasized.
The CSA 40 visit concluded with a visit to the Noncommissioned Officer Academy and the 2-13th Aviation Regiment here.
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Fort Huachuca is home to the U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence, the U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM)/9th Army Signal Command and more than 48 supported tenants representing a diverse, multiservice population. Our unique environment encompasses 946 square miles of restricted airspace and 2,500 square miles of protected electronic ranges, key components to the national defense mission.
Located in Cochise County, in southeast Arizona, about 15 miles north of the border with Mexico, Fort Huachuca is an Army installation with a rich frontier history. Established in 1877, the Fort was declared a national landmark in 1976.
We are the Army’s Home. Learn more at https://home.army.mil/huachuca/.
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