MARS of today operates under 4 mission sets:
1. Provide HF contingency communications support to the DOD and the Services (Army, Navy/Marines and Air Force).
2. Provide contingency communications support for Defense Support to Civil Authorities.
3. Provide communications support to geographic combatant commanders for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.
4. Provide moral and welfare support to deployed DOD personnel.
Let me break down those missions and give you some recent examples of what that means:
- Just this week, MARS members were at Eglin, AFB providing HF training to active duty soldiers on HF frequency selection, HF wave propagation and field expedient HF antennas. While that training was happening, the AF phone patch net was conducting phone patches for an Army Reserve unit training exercise.
- This weekend we have MARS stations alerted for Hurricane Rudy in the Philippines in coordination with DOD and a combatant command.
- Last weekend, we had MARS members participating in an international HF exercise with the UK Army Cadets.
- Two weeks ago, a Marine unit was training with the AF phone patch net while they were deployed on a field training exercise.
- Three weeks ago we had MARS members training National Guard soldiers in Michigan on the art of HF communications.
- Four weeks ago, MARS members as well as an Air National Guard unit participated in an international HF competition that included participants from 5 countries.
- At the end of October, more than 500 MARS members from all three MARS Services participated in a nation-wide contingency communications exercise with DOD forces.
- In August, MARS and our Canadian counterparts participated in a multinational exercise with a US combatant command training on humanitarian assistance response efforts.
- Over the past year, MARS members have provided HF training to Soldiers in OR, PA, MI, IL, TX, and UT.
- MARS members in TX did an HF demonstration for a group of VIPs from Chile.
- This past spring, MARS provided HF communication for an Army HQs participating in a multinational HF exercise.
Those are just a few examples in addition to all the great examples provided by AFA6MD of what today's MARS members are doing to support the DOD. I will leave you one final thought: MARS of today is very different from the MARS of just a few years ago; we are continuing to evolve. Paul