Well ... It should be taken as a severe scolding by Congress. Simple as that imho. The 3 services have had more than enough time to come up with a plan for interoperability. I mean, that *was* the buzzword for at least a few years before we totally dropped the ball. It looks to me like the 3 services' leadership chose to hang on to their respective "ricebowls" as long as possible. Trouble is, the old mission went away a long time ago. It has even been discussed here. Service men and women now have private communications systems on their persons in the form of cell phones, and additionally, they have internet connectivity from their bases. The only viable direction for MARS to continue toward is that of ECOM federal, state and/or local on-scene command support during disasters. The only way MARS will be of any use to these agencies is if they are a coordinated, connected and uniformly-trained group of operators. On the DOD level, policy-makers could free up a few (very few) federal dollars to make the reutilization/re-issue of government property a reality for MARS members again, as a sort of "carrot" for going to the trouble of actually achieving interoperability. It's not as if property has to be purchased -- it's already been paid for once. All MARS would need is the administrative support for actually handling the transfer of re-utilized equipment. Pipe dream, I know, but so too is the idea of true interoperability within and between the MARS services. I mean, there is evidence of AREA DIRECTORS who choose to implement their own individual communications policies and protocols, rather than follow existing policy promulgated by their respective MARS Chief!! If there is no interoperability across state lines in the same MARS service, how can we ever hope to achieve interoperability between the services themselves? Endeavor to prove me wrong - I wish I was!
73,
K9CTB