ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. —Over the past decade, our nation has seen historic events such as the culmination of the War in Afghanistan, the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous environmental disasters, as well as growing civil unrest amidst a changing nation. The need for the Army to act as first responders and keep the country rolling along has become more present than almost ever before! Whether it is supporting civilian first responding entities with networking equipment and training, or directly providing the response itself though state-level National Guardsmen, the Army must be able to meet any challenge our nation may face.
With the emergence of potential threats to national energy supplies and power connectivity resources, technological mobility has proven key to survivability and overmatch. Agility and interoperability amongst commercial tech products increase the expeditionary nature of today’s force and its ability to rapidly deploy the right-sized units to the right place, at the right time.
One way the Army is meeting this challenge and working to keep the country operating as normal, in the event of a domestic disaster or non-military threat, is the formation of the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command’s Network Modernization team.
“NETMOD is a team that does all kinds of network modernization projects, planning, and support – all to try and modernize the network,” said Louis Durran, CECOM’s NETMOD Project Lead. “When it comes to modernization, the Army has historically been behind the civilian sector, and we [NETMOD] try to fix that problem every chance we get.”
By modernizing the network – whether by routing or switching voice capabilities, wireless capabilities and cellular systems – CECOM’s NETMOD team helps to make the Army communication system comparable to the civilian sector.
CECOM’s NETMOD team operates a full-service support facility providing all required systems, support and logistical services for full-scale New Equipment Fielding (NEF) and New Equipment Training (NET). This includes training development and delivery, training package development, integration, warehousing, field support and disaster response.
The NETMOD team delivers innovative and expeditionary commercial communications and tactical network transport capabilities, which enable both military and civilian leaders to make rapid decisions in joint, coalition multi-domain operations, at every phase of potential operations.
These easy-to-deploy, easy-to-operate systems are fully interoperable with the Army’s Tactical Network Transport capabilities and increase signal path diversity, network resiliency, speed of maneuver and operational flexibility.
One of the best examples of this is through NETMOD’s Disaster Incident Response Communications Terminal (DIRECT).
“We have one really incredible project called DIRECT which supports all types of missions and events like hurricane response and other natural disasters,” said Durran. “When we do that we work only with civilian sector – like firemen, police and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) – that are responding to these disasters effecting entire states.”
DIRECT provides interoperability communications support to National Guard (NG) response forces and local first responders during their emergency response related missions, including large-scale pre-planned events, natural disaster response, and other civil support/humanitarian efforts.
DIRECT provides capabilities such as modular communications systems, support equipment, and a team of trained operators and maintainers to ensure that National Guard and first responder teams have access to critical voice, video, and data transmissions.
“The Army has to be able to communicate with the civilian sector and be able to provide that backbone capability that has potentially been wiped out by a hurricane,” said Durran. “Our civilian sector first responders have to have modern resources. That’s one of our (NETMOD’s) tenets: modernizing so we can support everyone, not just the Army civilians.”
CECOM’s NETMOD team manages nine different systems with several versions or subsets, including the DIRECT project.
Whereas communications used to be prioritized at the commander level, there is now a push to ensure that fast and reliable communication exists all the way to the small unit level. The NETMOD suite of products extends the network to lower echelons via modular, scalable, and interoperable nodes. DIRECT and the NETMOD team provide significant increases in bandwidth, range, and situational awareness while reducing the physical footprint, enabling a more effective and rapidly deployable force.
This flexible and rapidly deployable force of the future must be efficiently-resourced to accommodate both Soldiers and civilian first responders.
“We train the other CECOM entities also on how to support these systems,” said Durran. “So our job is new equipment training and fielding. We do all of that stuff for the equipment before it is given to the first responder or Soldier.”
CECOM’s NETMOD team provides on-site support during times of need when DIRECT is deployed. This method of emergency communications benefits the local responders by providing immediate – less than three hours from first arrival on site – access to the Tactical Network, and enabling critical voice, video and data services with reach-back capability and connectivity to the Global Information Grid.
The current customer base for NETMOD consists of Active Army component units, Army National Guard, FEMA, the CECOM Software Engineering Center, and CECOM Logistics Assistance Representatives (LARs).
“They come to us for training and modernization knowledge,” said Durran. “When that particular fielded equipment does eventually transition to sustainment, and it goes over to CECOM for either repair, sustainment, or warranty, we do also provide a transfer of knowledge, before moving forward with that tech.”
NETMOD’s primary location and warehouse are in Augusta, GA, although NETMOD currently maintains a physical presence in Ft. Gordon, GA; Ft. Hood, TX; Ft. Bliss, TX; Ft. Bragg, NC; Ft. Campbell, KY; and at CECOM headquarters in Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD.
The NETMOD team currently consists of 38 contractors and six DAC employees separated into two major subcategories: Operations-Logistics and Instructor-Field Support.
“This is a real team effort,” claimed Durran. “All eleven of our team leads have been Soldiers, have deployed to [challenging environments], like Afghanistan. I’ve been to Afghanistan, both as a Soldier and DA Civilian, 8 times!”
Durran, like many other members of the NETMOD team, understands the practicality and benefits of a modernized network in an increasingly complex and potentially hostile deployed environment.
“From the first time I went to the last, I saw a huge difference in terms of our technological capabilities,” claimed Durran. “We take this work so seriously because we’ve all been there and done that as service members and first responders. We want to make it better, faster, smarter and easier for our new Soldiers and that next generation of those on the frontlines of our Nation’s defense!”
FMD NETMOD was first conceptualized in early 2014, before officially forming in November of 2014. The DIRECT concept was developed the following winter of 2015.
CECOM has played a significant role in the development, procurement, training and support of the DIRECT system since its beginning in August 2014. CECOM FMD has been the sole source of support and training for the DIRECT system throughout its impressive operational history.
Durran has been with the NETMOD team since its beginnings in 2014, and he describes the program’s purpose as a way to provide Soldiers the same convenient and easy-to-operate technological capabilities that civilians regularly utilize.
“We have to be able to keep up with the current generation,” he said. “We have to match their skillset and their knowledge base. They come in knowing wireless because they’ve done it their entire lives. Are we going to ask these new soldiers to revert back 20 plus years to old Army technology? That’s a no-go. We have to be able to keep up, or else we’re going to get left behind. If we don’t teach and support our Army’s current knowledge base, we’re doing the soldiers a disservice.”
As an Army Veteran and current DA Civilian with over 30 years of combined service, Durran embodies the Army’s Soldier For Life ethos with his service working the current NETMOD mission.
“It feels awesome,” he exclaimed. “I always think of back to when I was a soldier, and now I have a unique opportunity now to shape the way forward for soldiers just now entering their service. And that’s what’s important to me. We’re not going to be rolling out the 5-ton vehicle just to make a teletype call, like we did when I first joined the Army back in 1988.”
Although Durran and his NETMOD team continue to draw on their own experiences as inspiration and motivation to modernize the network, he is impressed with the progress he has seen.
“Nowadays, Soldiers can jump in and have communications up wirelessly within a matter of minutes, said Durran. “Everybody has wireless now so we’re not introducing something to the soldiers that they don’t already know . Now that we have an opportunity to shape the way forward, we all take it very seriously. We are working so that our Soldiers can communicate through any means available to any regular people.”
CECOM continues to support NETMOD and DIRECT during natural and man-made disasters, most recently during the response to Hurricane Ida in September of 2021. The CECOM FMD contact team remains on stand-by during hurricane season, or every year from 1 June to 30 November.
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