GOODFELLOW AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- Ping. A text message appears on your phone.
Swoosh. An email has been sent.
Click, click, click… the keyboard hums as your fingers swiftly type a message for an email.
Technology, eh?
Information is everywhere, competing for your attention.
Advertisements, click-bait, memes.
But not all messages are friendly, and not all messages are random. Adversaries prey on faults in the metadata info-structure, searching for vulnerabilities, like a crack in the dam.
This is Information Warfare.
The Department of Defense combats information warfare by building a joint service and an international allied coalition of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance professionals.
“Today we graduated intelligence officers and all source analysts,” said Tech. Sgt. James Burgin, 315th Training Squadron instructor supervisor. “We are celebrating the next big leap in their careers to best serve the United State Air and Space Force.”
On behalf of the DoD, the 17th TRW graduated ISR professionals at the base theater, May 24.
“This is important because these graduates are the next generation of intelligence professionals,” Burgin continued. “They will go out and tackle all the geopolitical aspects across the world, because we train them to be better than we are today.”
The successful future multi-domain operations begins with expert intelligence training conducted at the 17th Training Wing.
“The bedrock of what you learn here, I’m enthused about,” said Lt. Gen. Kirk S. Pierce, commander of Continental U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command Region and 1st Air Force (Air Forces Northern and Air Forces Space). “You are getting one of the best executive educations that will serve you in the Air Force, the joint force, or if you work in the civilian sector someday. So, embrace it, we need you, and I think you are in a great position for that.”
The 17th TRW constantly evaluates the realism of course curriculum, calling trusted council from all major commands of the Air Force, for insight and to continuously enhance lethality.
“We’ve improved by adding more applicability to training,” said Burgin. “We’ve implemented a learning foundation where each lesson is stacked on top of the next, that way students continuously apply learned concepts throughout the course.”
Air Education and Training Command objectives are fulfilled through hands-on training tactics integrated with modernized, advanced, and innovative intelligence equipment, closing the gap between training and the operational joint force.
The 17th TRW has graduated more than 800,000 ISR professionals, who perform and manage intelligence functions and activities to support the United States and allied forces.
“Those intel badges you earned today, is just the start,” said Pierce. “You are going into a profession– and I speak for the Air Force, for the joint force– where we are fusing data across all the domains. We need all of you, so thank you for joining the profession of arms.”