Photo By Lori Stewart | CWO4 Bengt T. Monson read more read more
by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
MONSON TAKES COMMAND OF FIRST CONSOLIDATED TRAINING FACILITY
In October 1982, CWO4 Bengt T. Monson became the director of the first Consolidated Training Facility (CTF) in St. Paul, Minnesota. A reservist on active duty, he led the CTF, which he had helped stand up, through its first three-and-a-half years of operation.
Born in Minneapolis in 1933, Ben Monson enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1953 and trained as a 05C high-speed radio operator and a 72B message center operator. He served most of his three-year active-duty tour with Army Security Agency (ASA) units stationed at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. He transferred to reserve status in 1956 and spent most of the next thirty-six years in “dual status” as a reservist in the same units he supported as a full-time civilian technician. The first twelve years were with B Company, 314th ASA Battalion, at Fort Snelling, Minnesota. During that time, his company was called up in 1961-1962 in response to the Berlin Crisis. In April 1970, 1st Sgt. Monson was appointed a warrant officer and transferred to the 523d ASA Company, also at Fort Snelling, where he served as a traffic/emanations analysis technician for another twelve years.
In 1976, Monson and his company commander, Capt. John J. Delaney, sought to rectify their unit’s training deficiencies. Like most Army intelligence reserve units, they struggled to provide effective realistic unit training to maintain their soldiers’ critical MOS and language skills. They wanted more advanced and hands-on “hard skill” intelligence training than the basics the unit had been cycling through the past five years, but they lacked the required secure equipment and facilities.
Monson worked closely with the ASA, the National Security Agency (NSA), and U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) to tackle these hurdles. Finally, in 1978, he secured and accredited the first U.S. Army Reserve (USAR)-controlled Secure Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) in the basement of a St. Paul-based technology plant that worked on secure programs for the U.S. Navy. Monson served as the SCIF’s first special security officer (SSO), one of the first in the USAR. Once the SCIF was opened, the unit brought in instructors from the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and School’s detachment at Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas, to provide traffic analysis and voice intercept training for the 523d’s soldiers. The NSA provided reference materials and equipment. Monson later recalled, “the training was excellent; soldiers were motivated, …and unit strength and MOS-qualification was an eye-opener at reviewing headquarters, where SIGINT units had long been viewed as a drag on overall readiness statistics.”
In 1980, the 523d moved to a larger SCIF with more space than the unit needed. Monson turned again to FORSCOM with a recommendation to open the SCIF to other MI units requiring training. At a conference held in St. Paul from 10-11 September 1981, issues of mission, funding, training programs, equipment, and cadre were hammered out. The result was the USAR’s first Consolidated Training Facility to provide realistic training to MI personnel in other military units willing and able to travel to St. Paul. Going a step further, CWO4 Monson secured a live SIGINT mission for the 523d to perform year-round in the CTF, allowing the unit to support its active-duty counterparts and national agencies.
Monson served as director of the CTF he had created from 1982−1986. His CTF became the FORSCOM model for five similar facilities across the country, and the training expanded to include all MI disciplines. Eventually, these CTFs evolved into today’s Army Reserve Intelligence Support Centers (ARISCs) under the Military Intelligence Readiness Command’s Training Support Command.
In April 1986, CWO4 Monson returned to reserve status and spent the next six years as a communications security technician and SSO with the 88th U.S. Army Reserve Command at Fort Snelling. He retired on 10 December 1992.
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| Date Taken: | 10.18.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 10.18.2024 14:06 |
| Story ID: | 483446 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 187 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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