I had debated for a long time about sharing this with the forum, but given how other people share some fairly personal stuff -- and since people probably know enough small bits of information about me anyway -- I thought I'd pass this on.
A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to support the United States Air Force during combat operations...as a civilian. One of their key new intelligence systems, an unmanned air vehicle (UAV) called Global Hawk, was rushed into service in Operation Enduring Freedom because its capabilities were urgently needed in Afghanistan. (My company builds the imaging systems which are carried on board -- the whole reason it's in the air in the first place.) However, since it was still in what was basically a prototype phase, a lot of civilians were needed to operate and maintain the system. In my case, I was picked to go because I had some parallel experience which enabled me to quickly learn how to operate the Global Hawk sensors.
The system was incredibly successful in OEF. It proved to be far more flexible than some other Air Force assets, which enabled commanders to do some new and interesting things. Because of that success, the system was again called into action in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and I was asked to go back out to the field -- but this time, in addition to taking a lot of the pictures myself, I was also asked to teach some Air Force personnel how to do the job I had learned (and helped define) in OEF. When OIF was declared over, the statistics tracking what Global Hawk had accomplished were staggering. Our single aircraft had identified 55% of the time-critical targets identified by commanders, located massive amounts of surface-to-air missile systems and components, and provided intelligence which led to the destruction of more than 300 tanks -- 38% of the known Iraqi force.
As pieces of the story were declassified in the subsequent months, a writer from Air and Space Smithsonian Magazine became interested in the story and arranged for a series of interviews with the Air Force and contractor teams which made the Global Hawk success happen. That story is in this month's (January 2005) Air & Space -- it should be on newsstands now. (There is a short blurb online, but the eight-page article is only available in print.) As much as the writer tried to focus on the human aspects of the story, the real appeal is the description of the technology. Global Hawk can do some pretty amazing stuff, and the brilliance of the people at my company who designed the sensors and control software blew me away every day.
I suppose I need to add a few disclaimers:
1) The blurb makes it sound like I was physically in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is not true. The system is actually controlled via satellite, so the "flight crew" can literally be located anywhere in the world which makes sense. The full article discusses this point, but since I've already gotten some questions from other friends, I should say that up front.
2) I think I get way too MUCH credit in the story. The author was looking for an angle, and chose to follow "my story" through the two deployments. Although it's flattering, I was part of a MUCH larger team, all of whom were required to make things work. There were people with the plane doing the physical maintenance of the sensor system...and they were in a far less hospitable environment. My officemate, who has actually spent more time in the field running the system than anyone, was team lead on both deployments, but he was unavailable for both interviews. (I fought pretty hard to get a team photo in the magazine...I'm glad that they agreed!) Of course, the development team who CREATED the system over many years are mentioned only by implication.
3) Although I shouldn't have to say this kind of thing, we are living in strange times...so here goes. The word "patriotism" is mentioned several times in the article, and yes, patriotism was certainly one of my motivations for going. However, things were not quite that simple. I was proud that my job helped keep hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of our troops safe, especially our ground troops. I was proud to represent my company in the best way I could to our ultimate customer -- the warfighter -- and I hope that they came away feeling that we brought our best technology, people, and effort to the table to make them succeed. I was proud to represent MYSELF -- it was a challenge to learn something new and critical in a short period of time, and to constantly adapt to make it better.
With all that being said, none of that implies that I agree with the decisions of our President to send our troops to war. Without turning this into a political lecture, I felt entirely different about supporting OEF than I did in supporting OIF. Interestingly enough, there was a wide range of opinions about OIF among the military and civilian people on the team. Regardless of personal feelings, we had a job to do, and we did it well. The "patriotism" I believe in is big enough to allow -- no, DEMAND -- criticism of our leaders when things are going the wrong way.
Anyway, this has gotten a bit long, so I'll wrap this up. If you're interested by any of this, please pick up the article -- I think you'll enjoy it. If you want to contact me with comments, I'd like to hear what you think, but I probably won't be able to answer questions related to operations or technology beyond what's already in the article.
A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to support the United States Air Force during combat operations...as a civilian. One of their key new intelligence systems, an unmanned air vehicle (UAV) called Global Hawk, was rushed into service in Operation Enduring Freedom because its capabilities were urgently needed in Afghanistan. (My company builds the imaging systems which are carried on board -- the whole reason it's in the air in the first place.) However, since it was still in what was basically a prototype phase, a lot of civilians were needed to operate and maintain the system. In my case, I was picked to go because I had some parallel experience which enabled me to quickly learn how to operate the Global Hawk sensors.
The system was incredibly successful in OEF. It proved to be far more flexible than some other Air Force assets, which enabled commanders to do some new and interesting things. Because of that success, the system was again called into action in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and I was asked to go back out to the field -- but this time, in addition to taking a lot of the pictures myself, I was also asked to teach some Air Force personnel how to do the job I had learned (and helped define) in OEF. When OIF was declared over, the statistics tracking what Global Hawk had accomplished were staggering. Our single aircraft had identified 55% of the time-critical targets identified by commanders, located massive amounts of surface-to-air missile systems and components, and provided intelligence which led to the destruction of more than 300 tanks -- 38% of the known Iraqi force.
As pieces of the story were declassified in the subsequent months, a writer from Air and Space Smithsonian Magazine became interested in the story and arranged for a series of interviews with the Air Force and contractor teams which made the Global Hawk success happen. That story is in this month's (January 2005) Air & Space -- it should be on newsstands now. (There is a short blurb online, but the eight-page article is only available in print.) As much as the writer tried to focus on the human aspects of the story, the real appeal is the description of the technology. Global Hawk can do some pretty amazing stuff, and the brilliance of the people at my company who designed the sensors and control software blew me away every day.
I suppose I need to add a few disclaimers:
1) The blurb makes it sound like I was physically in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is not true. The system is actually controlled via satellite, so the "flight crew" can literally be located anywhere in the world which makes sense. The full article discusses this point, but since I've already gotten some questions from other friends, I should say that up front.
2) I think I get way too MUCH credit in the story. The author was looking for an angle, and chose to follow "my story" through the two deployments. Although it's flattering, I was part of a MUCH larger team, all of whom were required to make things work. There were people with the plane doing the physical maintenance of the sensor system...and they were in a far less hospitable environment. My officemate, who has actually spent more time in the field running the system than anyone, was team lead on both deployments, but he was unavailable for both interviews. (I fought pretty hard to get a team photo in the magazine...I'm glad that they agreed!) Of course, the development team who CREATED the system over many years are mentioned only by implication.
3) Although I shouldn't have to say this kind of thing, we are living in strange times...so here goes. The word "patriotism" is mentioned several times in the article, and yes, patriotism was certainly one of my motivations for going. However, things were not quite that simple. I was proud that my job helped keep hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of our troops safe, especially our ground troops. I was proud to represent my company in the best way I could to our ultimate customer -- the warfighter -- and I hope that they came away feeling that we brought our best technology, people, and effort to the table to make them succeed. I was proud to represent MYSELF -- it was a challenge to learn something new and critical in a short period of time, and to constantly adapt to make it better.
With all that being said, none of that implies that I agree with the decisions of our President to send our troops to war. Without turning this into a political lecture, I felt entirely different about supporting OEF than I did in supporting OIF. Interestingly enough, there was a wide range of opinions about OIF among the military and civilian people on the team. Regardless of personal feelings, we had a job to do, and we did it well. The "patriotism" I believe in is big enough to allow -- no, DEMAND -- criticism of our leaders when things are going the wrong way.
Anyway, this has gotten a bit long, so I'll wrap this up. If you're interested by any of this, please pick up the article -- I think you'll enjoy it. If you want to contact me with comments, I'd like to hear what you think, but I probably won't be able to answer questions related to operations or technology beyond what's already in the article.
