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TROJAN
SPIRIT
The
"Horsemen" of the 501st MI Brigade place timely
intelligence information into the warfighters
hands...seamlessly, continuously and immediately
By the 501st MI Brigade
Korea,
Land of the Morning Calm, is a land divided. The South is
busy, productive and enjoying democracy. The North is on
the brink of starvation, isolated and armed to the teeth.
As the military forces of the North stand-off against the
United Nations Command forces in the South, a tentative
and fragile state of armistice exists. Preparation,
modernization, training, readiness and the conduct of
continuous intelligence operations against an active
threat stand as the principal deterrents to war. These
deterrents keep the two nations from a renewal of the war
which divided and devastated the Korean peninsula and
people 50 years ago.
Critical to vigilance and
peaceful deterrence is timely and accurate intelligence.
Keeping a watchful eye on the North are numerous
intelligence professionals in an complex, fully
operational Combined and Joint effort focused on
indications and warning. The intelligence community in
Korea maintains watch, while at the same time staying
ready to transition to a state of crisis or war a
transition which could come with little or no advance
warning. As critical as intelligence is to warfighting
and providing decision makers with warning,
communications remains its life blood.
Supporting the theater
intelligence architecture is an elaborate communications
network which must survive a transition to hostilities.
The TROJAN SPIRIT teams of the 501st MI Brigade provide
stabilized, protected communications support to
commanders. A vital link in the theaters
intelligence architecture, the soldiers from the Trojan
"Horsemen" of Company B, 532nd MI Battalion
(Operations) stand ready to assume the role of the movers
of intelligence information. These highly trained and
motivated soldiers keep the TROJAN SPIRIT prepared to
deploy at a moments notice and are an integral part
of the everyday operations which support the indications
and warning mission.
The System of Choice
As
all good military intelligence professionals realize,
communications and the systems used are keys to placing
timely intelligence information into the hands of the
warfighter. The TROJAN Special Purpose Integrated Remote
Intelligence Terminal II, or TROJAN SPIRIT, is the system
of choice. The TROJAN SPIRIT uses secure commercial and
military satellite communications to provide a
cornerstone of INSCOMs national-to-tactical-level
intelligence support.
A TROJAN SPIRIT system
consists of two heavy high mobility multipurpose wheeled
vehicles (HMMWV) with shelters and a 2.4 meter diameter
satellite communications antenna mounted on a tactical
trailer. The first shelter, known as the Primary HMMWV
Shelter, is the guts of the system. The second
vehicle/shelter is the spare equipment and maintenance
vehicle which allows a TROJAN SPIRIT team redundancy and
survivability anywhere the system deploys.
The TROJAN SPIRIT platoon
consists of three systems organized to support U.S. Army,
Joint and Republic of Korea warfighters. Each of the
three systems are designed with the appropriate software
configuration which allows a seamless flow of
intelligence information. The systems access national and
theater databases and multiple communications interfaces
which support multiple linkages. Their tailored
configuration supports the joint and combined theater.
The system configurations in Korea allow the 501st MI
Brigade to support the Joint Deployable Intelligence
Support Systems (JDISS), All Source Analysis
System-Warrior, Pacific Command Automated Site Server
Korea, JMICS and others. This flexibility allows
the TROJAN SPIRIT to communicate with anyone and everyone
who requires critical intelligence information.
The
"Horsemen"
In
the 501st MI Brigade, when a intelligence soldier speaks
of operations, information, processing, analysis and
dissemination of an all-source product, the same soldier
will end up pointing to the 532nd MI Battalion, known as
the "The BLACK HORSE Battalion." Within the
532nd MI Battalion, Company Bs TROJAN SPIRIT makes
timely dissemination possible. The unit currently
operates three systems, each having a habitual support
arrangement, which can be shifted to meet the
commander-in-chiefs requirements. The soldiers are
the life blood of the system and are commonly referred to
as the "Horsemen." Signal intelligence analysts
or "Horsemen" deploy, operate and maintain the
system.
The unique versatility
signal intelligence analysts bring to the systems
operation is invaluable. The analysts possess the mental
agility to ensure a consistent flow of information and an
understanding of the type, purpose and importance of the
information which flows through the system. These highly
skilled soldiers operate the systems technical
aspects as well as the analyst workstations. Workstations
are either inside the TROJAN SPIRIT or remotely
configured in a command post to allow maximum operational
benefits. The operators are positioned to conduct
preliminary analysis and bring additional synergy to the
final analytical products produced for the warfighter
while ensuring the system operates without interruption.
The Mission
To
really appreciate the criticality of the TROJAN
SPIRITs role in the Republic of Korea, it is
important to understand the unique nature of this
theater. The 501st MI Brigade is a forward deployed
intelligence organization conducting continuous
intelligence processing, analysis and dissemination under
the conditions of armistice in the Republic of Korea.
Each day, 501st soldiers work with Republic of Korea and
Joint service counterparts at the tactical, operational
and strategic levels. Soldiers are forward deployed
information warriors who conduct a continuous live
indications and warning mission. In addition, every
soldier must train on the intelligence operations tasks
associated with transition to war and basic soldier
combat skills. Nowhere else in the world does the
potential exist to transition from an armistice
environment to a high intensity conflict overnight.
So what does this mean for
the TROJAN SPIRIT? While many intelligence systems within
the United States operate during periodic exercises and
field deployments or participate in high profile
exercises such as National Training Center rotations,
systems deployed in Korea must operate daily and be ready
to transition to wartime/combat conditions immediately.
If the threat chooses to end armistice conditions with an
act of war, the time for training and preparations are
not available. Consequently, operators must be ready to
deploy 365 days a year without relief from the daily
indication and warnings mission.
The Focus
The
daily and on-order missions can cover the entire Republic
of Korea area as well as worldwide. The systems have the
capability and are ready to deploy on the peninsula to
support the warfighter. One of three systems supports
daily "live intelligence missions" to the
Ground Component Command Analysis and Control Element.
The second system brings a unique capability to link
directly to support the newest JWICS Mobile Integrated
Communications System. The third system supports the
theaters Deployable Intelligence Support Element.
This Element balances an indication and warning mission
support with commander-in-chief directed deployments on
numerous exercises such as ULCHI FOCUS LENS, FOAL EAGLE,
INTELEX, I/III Corps exercises, CAMPGROUND and Reception,
Staging and Onward Integration. This system and others
are on-call everyday to plug-in anywhere in theater if
critical communications links are needed to support U.S.
Forces in Korea and others.
During daily operations,
our TROJAN SPIRIT sites allow U.S.-based units to tie
into critical information/intelligence data bases from
sanctuary at any time. The intent is to ensure U.S.
forces receive rapid, secure and limitless sharing of
voice, data, and video information at the touch of a
switch. As for war preparations, exercises (both tactical
and command post) are almost as routine as daily
operations.
TROJAN operators train as
they will fight. The high operational tempo and
continuous training maintains readiness. The need is very
real. One of the best "workouts" for the TROJAN
SPIRIT is support provided to the Deployable Intelligence
Support Element. This element, in this theater,
represents a robust, tactically tailored direct support
team which gives the weight the battlefield with
information. It works directly for the
commanders-in-chief to support theater deep operations,
providing critical near-real time intelligence feeds
anywhere on the battlefield.
Branches and Sequels
It
is impossible to talk of the "routine" aspects
of the TROJAN SPIRIT without mentioning the continuous
pursuit, establishment and practice of branches and
sequels to operational plans. The questions are always
asked: Who, what, where and when will we be needed?
In the past six months, the
Horsemen fielded the newest system which will bring an
aggregate data rate of 1.544 megabytes per second (or
"T-1"). Technology continues to move forward
and so do the soldiers. They have traveled the length of
the peninsula providing redundant communications
capabilities for the Ground Component Command Technical
Control and Analysis Element. In conjunction with the
Deployable Intelligence Support Element, they
demonstrated their support capabilities for Republic of
Korea Corps elements. They became the primary system
operators for the JWICS Mobile Integrated Communications
System. The mix of major training events and daily tasks
and intelligence operations have proven a recipe for
success.
Critical Parts
The
Trojan Spirit systems, and the soldiers who operate them
are critical parts of the theater intelligence
architecture in the Republic of Korea. Working in this
challenging environment with a real-world mission every
day adds an exciting edge to what is already one of the
most interesting assignments. Indicative of many, if not
all of the jobs in the 501st MI Brigade, a Horsemen in
Korea learns more in one year than anywhere else in the
U.S. Army.
The
501st MI Brigade, U.S. Army Intelligence and Security
Command, is headquartered in Yong San, Korea.
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