Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [124]
The Echo candidates not only have to know the radios, they’re also responsible for developing communication plans to support tactical missions and base camp operations. A deployed ODA may have several teams out in the field and must maintain secure communications with those teams as well as the higher command at a forward operating base. A communications sergeant also has to train the other members of his team in the use and care of the radios and in the execution of the current commo plan. And like his brother weapons, engineering, and medical sergeants, he will have to teach these disciplines to allied soldiers in their language.
Communicators and operational planners have long been indoctrinated in the PACE protocol when developing communications plans. PACE stands for primary, alternate, contingency, and emergency methods of communications. “That’s still a part of our planning and thinking,” one of the cadre sergeants told me, “and the students need to learn this. It’ll be part of their communications plan they’ll have to develop and brief their plan for every operation. But with today’s modern, secure communications, you really only need a primary and an alternate. And we often have secure satellite phones. I’ve been to some pretty remote places on the Afghan-Pakistani border, and my Iridium sat phone was clear as a bell. But then sometimes there’s no coverage or your phone just goes down. Or the guy you want to talk to has a bad phone. Then you better find another way to make commo.”
The initial part of the 18 Echo curriculum is focused on learning the theory, learning the equipment, operating the equipment in the classroom setting, and operating the equipment under field conditions. Toward the end of the course, the Echo candidates are spending a lot of time outdoors communicating. There are two outdoor exercises. The first is a mini field exercise in which the class bivouacs outside the Eureka Springs communications facility, and the candidates erect antennas and run commo drills with all four radios. The instructor staff is right there with them, to help and answer questions. It’s an opportunity to set up and use all the radios, and to lock down the procedures and operation of each one. The second is a field performance exercise and the final exam for the 18 Echos. The twelve-day exercise is called Max Gain.
During Max Gain, the candidates will have to communicate with each radio under tactical field conditions for an extended period of time. The exercise begins with full ruck, weapons, ammunition, rations, and a load of radios. They operate in five-man teams. Each team has two PSC-5s, two PRC-119s, two MBITRs, and one PRC-137—and a lot of extra batteries. They also carry two CZY-10s, or “Crazy Tens,” pocket-size crypto devices that are used to load crypto into all radios. The Crazy Tens are a very highly controlled item. The teams leave the commo facility with each man carrying between 90 and 110 pounds of gear. A few of them are even heavier. This burden is shared equally by weight, if not by the man packing the weight. At 150 pounds, David Altman carries the same load as Justin Keller does at 250; both shoulder a ruck weighing a hundred pounds. They patrol under full tactical discipline for only a few miles, then set up in patrol base camps with eight commo teams per camp. While at the base camp and the outlying commo sites, the Echo candidates have to keep up tactical disciplines, just like they did in a patrol base back in Phase II. This means they live out of their rucks, observe the two-man rule, and never get beyond an arm’s length of their weapon. At night, the candidates take their rifles into the sleeping bag with them. At least two men are on security duty at all times.
One team will occupy the base camp while the other