Army cyber general: ‘What a difference a year makes’

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By: Mark Pomerleau

Things move quickly in cyberspace, and so the Army has been hard at work trying to find solutions in regard to training and organizing for emerging cyber and electronic warfare.

Maj. Gen. John Morrison, commander of the Army Cyber Center of Excellence at Fort Gordon, Georgia, highlighted some of the flashpoints for progress within the last year during his opening keynote address at TechNet Augusta.

“What a difference a year makes,” he said, prefacing the varying points of progress. “If you would have talked to us last year, we were training basically lieutenants in cyber school. Today we’re training all three cohorts — officers, warrant officers and this afternoon we graduate our first enlisted course.

“Absolutely tremendous growth lead by the cyber school team.”

Morrison, who assumed command a year ago, also highlighted training at the Army Signal School to make signal soldiers more multidisciplined and less specialized. “Quite frankly,” he said, the school is “upping the game of the signal regiment so they can do not only the operations and maintenance of the network but to the security of it as well.”

Another major point of departure from last year is the effort to move electronic warfare officers into the 17 series, or cyber branch, within the Army, further entrenching the “convergence” of cyber and electromagnetic spectrum operations.

“While that’s happening in October of next year, the transition actually starts now. We will start training our EW professional in cyber operations planning starting in January,” Morrison said.