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Setting standards to keep troops talking in the field Local Air Force officer working on military-wide project to standardize field communications Date published: 6/25/2008
By RUSTY DENNEN With multiple tours of duty under her belt, Air Force Maj. Marianne Lumsden knows the challenges troops face communicating in the field. Army units traditionally have set up computers and routers and networks differently than, say, Air Force, Navy and Marines. And that can slow the process, especially in combat. Lumsden, who lives in Fredericksburg, is working on a joint project at Quantico Marine Base to develop a standardized communications system. The Joint Mobile Network Operations project is the latest example of various branches of the military working together, rather than in-house, to solve problems that units encounter in the field. "We're writing a standard procedure so that they know it exists and to encourage them to incorporate it into their operating procedures," Lumsden said. "This is so we don't have to make agreements on the fly and we're working with agencies to get this into [Department of Defense] policy so it would be working at every level." The $15 million, three-year initiative began in February 2006. It's the first Marine Corps-led joint test and evaluation project; 28 people are working on it. "We're testing methods that our services can [establish] communications quickly and easily," said Chuck Frawley, a retired Marine and defense contractor who works with Lumsden. "We work with all four branches" of the military, "and with the officers of the secretary of defense every day," he said. Here in the U.S., and in most of the developed world, access to computers, the Internet and cell phones is a given. But that's not the case in remote areas, say, in Afghanistan or Iraq. "We just assume it's not there for the military when they deploy and you have to bring it, set it up, move it around, connect it and take it down again. It's very complex," he said. And in the current war zones, various branches of the military are working closer together than ever. Lumsden, 42, hadn't planned on doing this kind of work when she joined the Air Force in 1989. Born and raised in Missouri, she attended Southeast Missouri State University on a Reserve Officers Training Corps scholarship.
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