The 1st Infantry Division Sustainment Brigade is a unit that provides several logistical services in support of our nation’s wars and missions. One service in particular is signal support, which comes from the 267th Signal Company. Currently, various Soldiers from the 267th Signal Company are in the field conducting a communication exercise, or COMEX, here at Fort Riley, Kansas until March in support of a division-level field training exercise.
Sergeant 1st Class Brandon Williams, platoon sergeant for Joint Network Node (JNN) 77750, 267th Signal Company, has served for 15 years as a Signal Soldier.
“A COMEX is the exercise that leads up to a culminating exercise where you validate your communications equipment in order to support the warfighter so that you can guarantee that the communications will be intact when the exercise actually kicks off,” Williams said.
Among his team of Signal Soldiers are service members with different communications responsibilities and skillsets. As well as military signal experience from another branch.
Spc. Christian Foderingham, signal support specialist with the 267th Signal Company has been a Signal Soldier for the past 5 and a half years. However, his time in the service has not only been in the Army. According to Foderingham, before joining the Army, he was enlisted in the Marine Corps.
“I was a communications operator [in the Marine Corps], which is a mixture of a radio operator, satellite communications operator, and data operator,” Foderingham said.
With experience from both branches, Foderingham stated his views on how a COMEX helps with unit readiness as well as the continuation of his skill development as a Signal Soldier.
“COMEX’s train new and experienced soldiers in making sure all of the knowledge they’ve obtained is refreshed and they’re ready for the mission,” Foderingham said. “Basically it’s like a trial and error. I’m able to make a mistake, learn from the mistake, and I make sure I don’t do it the next time.”
Spc. J’ Cori Stewart, signal support specialist with the 267th Signal Company has been with the unit since June 2019.
Stewart reflected on his views on being in the field for the first time during the COMEX while in the winter of Kansas as opposed to be in a training environment such as his AIT, which was located at Fort Gordon, Georgia.
“It’s different because I’m from the south but it’s an experience nonetheless,” Stewart said. “It gives me a chance to actually learn and do my job hands-on instead sitting behind a training environment like books.
With the COMEX taking place during the winter in Kansas, Stewart share how he felt the weather would help with a deployed environment.
“Definitely, just because you can be mentally prepared for things you can’t control,” Stewart said. “You really can’t control the weather and different little variables like that, but at the end of the day you still have to do your job. So yeah, I think it does help.”
Just as Stewart says there are things you can’t control, one of his battle buddies has a similar situation with their communications equipment.
Spc. Thomas Figiel, nodal network systems operator-maintainer, 267th Signal Company reflected on what the COMEX meant to him as well as issues he’s overcome so far during the training exercise.
“It is a way for sustainment brigade to simulate as if it were boots on the ground in a real, live, situation,” Figiel said. “It is a good measure to see how well the Soldiers actually know their equipment. The real learning is when you come out here and you actually get to work with the equipment.”
“Even with this exercise from last year, I was hoping that since we didn’t change any of our settings that we would be able to just come out here, turn it on, and plug-and-play,” Figiel said. “That was not the case. Day one, things were not working.”
Figiel went into further detail as to why things did not work right away as well as what the experience means to him.
“Well we did get new equipment,” Figiel said. “A lot of it was factory settings and sometimes it will take a day or two to finally get it working and it’s frustrating but I’ve learned not to let it get to me.”
Even though it is a stateside training, Figiel gave his view on what the experience meant to him.
“The experience out here, you can’t substitute it with anything else.
| Date Taken: | 01.09.2020 |
| Date Posted: | 02.21.2020 17:18 |
| Story ID: | 360690 |
| Location: | FORT RILEY, KS, US |
| Web Views: | 392 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Signal Soldiers from the “Durable” Brigade conduct a COMEX, by SSG Walter Carroll, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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