DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS
TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL
(U) Having the (SIGINT) Time of My Life!
FROM: SMSgt
SNCOIC, Cryptologic Services Group Bagram
Run Date: 04/12/2005
What's it like to work as an NSA representative in Afghanistan? (C)
(U//FOUO) On Wednesday, 30 March 05, First Lady Laura Bush made a trip to Afghanistan to
help celebrate and foster the advancement for women in Afghanistan. I was extremely fortunate
to be a part of the VIP escort team that would assist the First Lady and other Cabinet Officials
and Staff Officers when they arrived to Bagram Air Base for a special celebration dinner. During
the dinner, Ms. Connie Duckworth, First Lady Laura Bush's Staff Officer for Afghanistan Women's
Affairs, asked me a question on how I was enjoying my time here at Bagram AB (Afghanistan).
My answer came without hesitation, "I have never in my entire life felt so honored to be an
American, so proud to be in the military...and Ma'am, the work of the United States military,
along with our coalition partners IS MAKING AMERICA SAFER...truly Ma'am, I am having the
time of my life! "
(U) First Lady Laura Bush and SMSgt
(CSG Bagram) during a celebration dinner
held at Bagram AB, Afghanistan
(C) I'm a 40 year old, Senior Master Sergeant, with 18+ years in the service. I am the single
parent of twin 6-year-old girls,
and
who are my entire world...so what am I doing in
Afghanistan? I'll tell you what I am doing; I am fighting a "SIGINT" war in support of
OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM where 80% of the actionable intelligence for CJTF-76 Forces
comes out of the Cryptologic Support Groups (CSG). When CJTF-76 "actions" a target, they
head straight to the CSG and ask for information that almost always is the deciding factor on
whether or not a "target" is actioned...and CSG analysts are "Johnny-on-the-Spot" every time.
My OIC (Officer in Charge), Army MAJ Eric Toler, and I literally comment to one another on a
daily basis how tremendous this experience is...and how incredibly exciting our mission. Our
daily saying to each other... "Isn't it awesome to be relevant!"
(S//SI) I truly had no idea how this opportunity to serve in the SIGINT enterprise was going to
manifest itself in a CSG...so I kept my eyes wide-open. Within hours of touching ground at
Bagram I was in the office meeting my troops and learning the mission...and I quickly found out
I was in for the ride of my life! Over the course of several days and subsequent weeks, I was
involved with a myriad of real-time situations where most of the INTs (HUMINT, IMINT, MASINT,
SIGINT) were brought to bear on capturing or killing substantiated "bad guys". But what was
most striking was no matter what INT they had on a target, the decision makers
almost always held out for SIGINT corroboration before giving the go-ahead to action
a target. For the first time in this old-SIGINTer's life did I really grasp the impact SIGINT had
on theater operations.
(S) CSG Bagram has benefited immensely from the OIC, MAJ Toler. MAJ Toler is an Army
tactical guy with a tremendous wealth of SIGINT experience...thus, has a unique ability to
facilitate National-level SIGINT assets to the forward-most tactical elements located at Forward
Operating Bases (FOBs). Another one of his "talents" is securing transportation on rotary-wing
aircraft...and the Office of Target Reconnaissance and Survey (OTRS) were one of many
beneficiaries of MAJ Toler's "connections" with flight operations.
(U) SMSgt
with Afghanistan National Army soldiers at Lwara Forward Operating Base
(Camp Tillman) after a successful OTRS mission.
(TS//SI) On 21 March 05, I had the great privilege of deploying forward with the OTRS team to
FOB Lawara (renamed Camp Tillman), located on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in the
province of Paktika. On this mission OTRS personnel were responsible for the installation of
collection "leave-behind" assets that directly support forward SIGINT teams by providing
collection capability for VHF/UHF signals in denied access terrain. For this mission our objective
was to install three systems and recover one. One of these systems to be installed was on the
top of a mountain ridge, approximately 8,100 feet above sea level, and an estimated 1,200
meters from the Pakistan border (and a host of nefarious miscreants). The installation of this
system was critical to the FOB SIGINT team because it denied Anti-Coalition Militants (ACMs)
unrestricted access to a tactically advantageous ridge used as a staging location to rocket and
mortar Coalition Forces. The mission was a complete success, as the OTRS systems installed
provided 82 Klieglights
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS
TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL
DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108