By Drew Brooks Military editor
A soldier meets with a source in a simulated environment during a military intelligence field exercise in August on Fort Bragg.
Soldiers conduct an air assault insertion during a field exercise on Fort Bragg. The soldiers are assigned to D Company, 127th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division.
A soldier uses the wolfhound system, a lightweight radio direction-finding system that targets VHF and UHF bands.
The 82nd Airborne Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team, serving as the core of the nation's Global Response Force, is looking to change the way it collects intelligence on the battlefield.
For the last six months, soldiers in D Company, 127th Brigade Engineer Battalion have been honing their skills as part of the brigade's first multifunctional military intelligence platoon.
That platoon is merging two of the 82nd Airborne's intelligence efforts that previously have been split into two separate domains.
The first, signal intelligence, is focused on using advanced technology, some of which is classified, to track enemy whereabouts and unveil future plans. The other, human intelligence, relies on people with direct knowledge of the enemy. It depends on relationships between soldiers and trusted contacts who may conduct covert meetings.
Soldiers assigned to each specialty attend separate schools, use different methods and, often, aren't aware of what each other is doing or the intelligence they collect.
"That's not the most efficient and effective way of supporting the ground forces," said Capt. Heather Burch, commander of D Company.
For the last six months, Burch said military intelligence soldiers within the brigade have been working toward a new operating concept, where they would more efficiently serve battlefield commanders.
That includes not only aligning the intelligence troops more closely with their infantry counterparts, but also with themselves.
SIGINT, HUMINT
In a typical deployment, the intelligence soldiers - known as SIGINT and HUMINT soldiers - would work independently.
But in Fort Bragg's vast training lands, the two missions were made to overlap.
Burch said the training shows how streamlined the intelligence process can become. And it allows the soldiers to adapt more quickly.
"It's lifesaving and mission changing intelligence," she said.
The roughly week-long field exercise was unlike any type of training the brigade's intelligence troopers have ever done, said 1st Lt. Kedrick Nelson, the multifunctional intelligence platoon leader.
The soldiers air assaulted into the area on Tuesday and set up a small camp, meant to mimic a forward operating base or other small outpost in a foreign country.
There, the soldiers mimicked a short-notice deployment, working quickly to set up their systems, touch base with potential contacts "in country" and develop an overview of the battlefield based on a scenario with patrolling opposition forces, role players and a fully simulated communications network.
"It's all about working together," Bu
rch said. "It's not two lines of effort. It's one big exercise."
Nelson said the soldiers are in the "crawl" phase of their "crawl, walk, run" training continuum.
Amid Fort Bragg's pine trees, he said officials were putting the soldiers in scenarios that forced them to work together and think outside of the boxes they have worked within in the past.
In one such scenario, the HUMINT soldiers conducted a secretive meeting with a contact while, nearby, a team of SIGINT soldiers monitored potential enemy communications.
The SIGINT soldiers could warn of a pending attack, officials said. Or they could provide real-time vetting of the information gathered by the HUMINT soldiers.
That sort of training builds up to even more complicated tasks, Nelson said, such as using the technology of the SIGINT soldiers to track and locate a target based on information gathered by the HUMINT soldier.
"We're trying to build into the scenario situations where we force them to work together," Nelson said. "We're getting closer. It's a step in the right direction."
Soldiers said the experience was eye opening.
Working faster
Not only did they learn what their counterparts can do and the types of information they can collect, they also noted the speed with which the multifunctional platoon could work.
In a typical deployment or exercise, the HUMINT and SIGINT teams would individually send information to an analysis cell, typically at a battalion headquarters, which would then compile the information and send it back to the ground forces.
Together, the multifunctional intelligence platoon soldiers said they can provide the picture of the battlefield much faster.
"By putting them side by side, it allows combat commanders a more direct connection to intelligence - and a clearer picture," Nelson said.
The soldiers may be crawling now, but Nelson said they will be expected to run during training at the Joint Readiness Training Center in Fort Polk, Louisiana, next year.
That will be a big test for the platoon that will help brigade leaders decide if they'll stick to the new format and, if so, how the platoon will be used in future operations.
Nelson said he hopes his soldiers prove they can be more efficient and effective.
"It'll save hours if not days," he said. And that could help save something even more important: lives.
Military editor Drew Brooks can be reached at brooksd@fayobserver.com or 486-3567.
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