 |
| Chief Warrant Officer William Whealy congratulates Sgt. Ryan Cooley upon graduating from the Military Intelligence School Friday on Fort Huachuca. (Mark Levy-Herald/Review) |
FORT HUACHUCA - The U.S. Army Intelligence Center graduated its first group of rapidly deployable National Guard and Army Reserve students Friday, intelligence specialists trained to provide "actionable intelligence" to troop commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The 77 students from the 97B and 97E classes at the Military Intelligence School are the first to complete a new program to mobilize, train and deploy in a matter of weeks officers needed to fill a void in intelligence-gathering capabilities overseas. The graduation marks the first time Guardsmen and Reservists have been utilized for the intelligence-gathering needs with this type of specialty training.
"We are committed to supporting the global war on terrorism," said Brig. Gen. Warner Sumpter, deputy commander of the National Guard at Fort Huachuca and keynote speaker at the graduation. "The soldiers graduating today are a testament to that commitment."
The soldiers from all units from across the country began their training on post 12 weeks ago, with 12-hour-long classes, six days each week. Within the coming days, they will be joining operations throughout the world as part of the war on terrorism.
Two similar classes with 35 students each are scheduled to graduate from the program at the end of May.
These soldiers, who served in non-military intelligence specialties with military intelligence units throughout the Army, have now been reclassified as human intelligence collectors and counterintelligence agents. They routinely work as interrogators oversees.
From here, the graduates will make their way to Fort Bliss for more collective training, then on to Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"We find the bad guys basically, find who they're working for and go get them," said graduate Nathan Loftus, who is on his way to Afghanistan. "It's pretty complicated, but that's about the easiest way to say, we find the bad guys."
More than 42 percent of the National Guard military intelligence force structure has been mobilized to support the war effort so far and the quicker military intelligence training is an effort to make sure the operations overseas are fully staffed with intelligence support.
It is an example of how the Army is changing the way it is training the force to meet current challenges, said Tanja Linton, a public affairs officer on post.