Photos provided by OIC Public Affairs, Combined Endeavor ’03.

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet.

Separately, they’re just colors. Together, they make a rainbow, which, if you believe the tale, has a pot of gold at its end. The government may have found its pot of gold when 38 nations came together for Combined Endeavor 2003 (CE 2003). When all these “colors” combined, they created a better system of communication.

LTC James Hogle, CE Executive Director, calls the exercise “a unique opportunity for senior communicators and technicians from individual nations to come together in a dedicated environment to plan, manage, and execute CIS (communications and information systems) interoperability tests. Each nation,” he continued, “has the opportunity to test their communications and information systems within a CIS architecture that simulates what could be expected in a coalition support operation.”

Capt. Chris Miller, USNR, summed the endeavor thusly, “When we bring people together for deployment, they’re ready.”

CE 2003 is the ninth in a series of U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) exercises that took place on Lager Aulenbach in Baumholder, Germany. The purpose of the event was to identify and document the “CIS interoperability between NATO and Partnership for Peace (PfP) nations strategic and tactical communications systems,” said Hogle. Interoperability is the key to the Endeavor’s success. “No where else in the world can you find technical specialists and senior communicators from [38] nations and organizations working together to find solutions for CIS interoperability problems,” Hogle praised.

The short-term goals of CE 2003 were to “test and document CIS interoperability, explore and resolve management issues within multinational networks, and build experience and knowledge in CIS planning among participating nations,” Hogle said.

“Various countries bring equipment they want to test with other countries,” added Miller. “It’s important because so many countries are pulled into coalitions.”

All of this helps CE 2003, and future Combined Endeavors, achieve the long-term goal of an integrated interoperability guide to assist planners in deploying nations’ equipment so that all involved can communicate smoothly as a combined network.

This year’s combined network consisted of more than 800 military operators and technicians. Representatives of NATO and the Southeastern Europe Brigade were also present for the NATO/PfP Interoperability Workshop and to conduct High Frequency (HF) testing between Lager Aulenbach and select home stations with Pretoria and Cape Town, South Africa.

In all, 1,000 military, Department/Ministry of Defense civilians, and contractor personnel came together for CE 2003.

Two-hundred fifty support personnel from Germany, U.S. Army Europe, and U.S. Air Forces in Europe provided logistics and administrative support for all CE 2003 events.

Reservists and guardsmen also played a big role. Personnel from the 261st Delaware National Guard installed and managed the Administrative Local Area Network (LAN); reservists from the 4th Combat Camera Squadron (CTCS) out of March Air Reserve Base, Calif., augmented the Visual Information team; and Naval reservists led the CE 2003 Public Affairs Office.

In the testing arena, the Rhode Island National Guard offered its expertise in Assurance of Information (AI) testing.

In addition, 793 visitors and 135 distinguished visitors toured the site during the exercise.

Although the focus of CE 2003 was on network operations, 15 operational satellite ground stations allowed participants to conduct more than 1,000 tests in Switch, Transmission, Wide Area Network (WAN), Information Systems, AI, Single Channel Radio (SCR), and Video Teleconferencing (VTC). This year’s event also marked three firsts: 1) the opportunity to participate in a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), 2) HF testing with South Africa, present as an observer, according to Miller, and 3) a PROMINA core network.

In previous years, nations were separated into multinational groups. This time, however, nations were separated regionally, with the regions based on multinational organizations.

One of the major challenges these groups faced was that most of the planned test equipment and supporting U.S. personnel were deployed due to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Making this a true combined endeavor, other nations made up for the deficiencies by offering their equipment. Software, however, was plentiful.

SolorWind®’s software package again served as the network management tool for operations. Key areas were HF radio testing conducted over Kamtronics® modems, Automatic Link Establishment, and Standard NATO Agreement (STAGNAG) 5066 nets. The Coalition Network Operations Plan and Memorandum of Instruction, established during CE 2002, became the main reference and management tool for CE 2003. As the German Army’s Lieutenant General von Krause, the first coalition officer, presided over the closing ceremonies, CE 2004, to be held May 6 19, was already in the works.

An AI policy that included detailed briefings on terminology and equipment operation scheduled for CE 2004 has already been implemented. Planning has also started for conducting the CE 2004 workshop at dual locations (Lager Aulenbach and a small site in Burgas, Bulgaria); developing and testing protected networks; and approving a coalition Assurance of Information Policy.

Hogle believes having next year’s workshop at dual locations will “inject a certain degree of operational relevance, as it demands transmissions to deployed locations, allows measurement of transmissions delays, and challenges functional area experts on both ends of the transmission.”

With the integration of devices to protect the networks, CE 2004 promises to be a security challenge. To help offset that challenge, those involved in CE 2004 have already developed a draft of an Assurance of Information Policy and implemented public key infrastructure (PKI), firewalls, virtual private networks (VPNS) and Internet protocol (IP) security.

Another challenge is meeting the needs of 38 nations. Therefore, the Assurance of Information Policy will be updated to everyone’s satisfaction.

“A coalition policy of this significance will be a first and will turn more eyes to Combined Endeavor,” Hogle said.

Making sure this exercise continues is important on many levels.

“From the U.S. perspective, it is important to continue Combined Endeavor to maintain currency with our coalition partners as we continue to engage in security cooperation and peacekeeping operations,” Hogle said. “Combined Endeavor not only provides us with the experience in working with our coalition partners, but the interoperability documentation, produced as a result of Combined Endeavor testing, can be used to assist us in planning future coalition support operations. It also provides points of contact for accomplishing crisis response operations on short notice.”