Photo By Daniel Ewer | Red Bull Soldiers Pfc. Bryce Bennett and Spc. Richard Schultz, C Company, Main Command...... read more read more
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JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. - The Red Bull Soldiers of Charlie Company responded to significant challenges while setting up communications for the 34th Infantry Division who were participating in Exercise Talisman Sabre 2015 at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. July 5 through 20.
Apparently, the 34th Infantry Division’s secret computer network could not talk to the higher headquarters’ network in Australia. The inability for the division and corps headquarters to communicate in secret was a show stopper. One of the G6 technicians who helped overcome these obstacles was Spc. Richard Schultz of the division’s main command post.
“I had to work with I Corps to get information on their distant end router and basically created a new VLAN for that and trunked it to their switch so they could talk to each other, and advertising our OSPF routes to that EIGR process and vice-versa,” said Schultz, making it sound like no big deal.
If that was not enough, the MCP platoon had 2 major hardware failures to deal with. Both the router for the secret network and its backup failed. This was another show stopper for the 34th Infantry Division at Talisman Sabre. As a citizen-Soldier, Shultz was able to draw upon his civilian career experience to benefit the National Guard. “Having real-world experience and bringing that out here, seeing behavior that the routers were displaying indicated imminent failure to me” said Schultz. Both routers were immediately replaced.
Schultz describes his section’s satellite and network trucks as "the source." They take the signal from the division headquarters and bounce it off a satellite to Minnesota and Australia. It may not be apparent sitting in a parking lot, but this signal setup does not draw upon local support. These rigs could support the division as effectively in a remote desert location. The division needs these rigs for all external communication.
“If they want to leave their local network inside the building, this is their way out and their communication back in” said Sgt. Ashly Beldoe, who leads the Satellite Communication Systems Operator-Maintainer (25S) section, which runs the satellite truck.
Charlie Company “is not so big as to be over specialized,” said Schultz. “We are somewhat specialized but we are proficient enough to fill in as needed.” Nodal Network Systems Operator-Maintainers (25N) who operate the Joint Nodal Network, are led by Sgt. Amy Allen. The section also includes Cable Systems Installers (25L) and the Multichannel Transmission Systems Operator-Maintainers (25Q). Sgt. 1st Class Joleen Bonebrake is the section sgt. and Lt John Klein is the platoon leader.
Schultz, a Newport Minnesota, resident, is a network engineer for Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension where he works extensively with network firewalls. He had previously worked for MN.IT Central, a state IT agency, where he did analyst work for design and engineering. He joined the National Guard in 2008 and is considering ‘going Warrant.’ He earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting with a minor in computer science at the U of M.
| Date Taken: | 07.13.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 07.13.2015 20:09 |
| Story ID: | 169929 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WA, US |
| Hometown: | NEWPORT, MN, US |
| Web Views: | 77 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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