Communications specialists get ‘juiced’ during training exercise

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Shawn J. Jones
  • 514th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX LAKEHURST, N.J. --  Approximately 20 Reserve Airmen of the 42nd Combat Communications Squadron began packing up their expeditionary field equipment here Friday as an 18-day, world-wide communications training exercise concluded.

The purpose of the Joint Users Interoperability Communications Exercise, known as JUICE, is to test and evaluate interagency communications capabilities in order to improve cohesiveness during emergencies or threats to national security.

The current emergency-response and national defense climate requires continuous cooperation and communication among multiple agencies with distinct, but often overlapping, missions. These agencies come from various levels of state and federal governments. The response to a major emergency - such as Hurricane Katrina or the September 11th terrorist attacks - typically involve active-duty and reserve-component members of each military branch, multiple police and firefighting forces, and many other state and local first-response and public safety agencies. In the past, communications systems were purchased and tested based on individual service needs of individual agencies which operated more independently.

The exercise attempts to reduce the inefficiencies and errors of operating multiple communications systems in a joint environment.

During the exercise, the Airmen here provided around-the-clock expeditionary communications, including public and defense telephone switching networks, regular and secure networking lines, and voice-over internet capabilities.

The services provided by the Airmen here were in direct support of the JUICE Joint Task Force Commander, who led the exercise from the Joint Network Operations Control Center in Fort Monmouth, N.J.

"This exercise has provided a significant benefit in helping the squadron to better understand joint concepts and how to better support the joint network," said Master Sgt. Daneian Easy, 42nd Combat Communications Squadron flight chief of Network Infrastructure.

The exercise also provided a chance for many Airmen to apply their skills in a large-scale exercise.

"I saw a lot of knowledge growth in our new Airmen and our junior noncommissioned officers," said Sergeant Easy. "As a result of the exercise, their troubleshooting skills have grown exponentially."

For some of the Airmen, it was their first exposure to the expeditionary aspects of being a reservist in a combat communications squadron.

"It's the first time I actually experienced how a combat communications unit operates in a deployed environment," said Senior Airman Sigmund Tanseco, who spent four years as an aerospace physiology technician in the active-duty Air Force before joining the 42nd CBCS last year.

The multinational exercise included approximately 1,000 communications-related test objectives. One significant objective for the Airmen here was evaluating the interoperability between the expeditionary and emergency-response communications equipment of the Air Force Reserve and the Air National Guard.

The reservists' equipment was primarily designed for combat deployments, while the Air Guard's was designed for stateside emergency response. By establishing a lateral link between the equipment, Airmen from the Guard would be able to access Defense Information Systems Agency services like Non-Secure Internet Protocol Router Network, Defense Switch Network, and the Public Switched Telephone Network over the Reserve equipment.

To help reach the goal of improved interoperability, the 42nd CBCS reservists were joined in the exercise here by three members of the Rhode Island Air National Guard's 282nd CBCS.

"I like the fact that we were able to come together and achieve a common mission," Airman Tanseco said. "The integration was almost seamless."

Several communications consultants and engineers who support the National Guard Bureau were also on hand to help fine-tune the interoperability between the systems.

"We're pushing the envelope," said consultant Mr. Jim Joyce during the exercise. "So far, we've had a lot of success."