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FORT INDIANTOWN GAP, Pa. \u2013 Pennsylvania National Guard Soldiers focused on locating simulated enemy fighters through various military intelligence means and calling in strikes from unmanned aircraft systems, or UAS, during a multi-domain exercise conducted Aug. 1-4 as part of their two-week annual training.<\/p>\n
Soldiers from the Pennsylvania National Guard\u2019s 556th Military Intelligence Company, or MICO, 56th Mobile Brigade Combat Team, or MBCT, took part in the exercise named Operation Iron Synergy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re trying to do is get the company used to large-scale multi-domain operations,\u201d said Capt. Justin Glass, commander of the 556th MICO. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to exercise every single intelligence discipline through one coordinated exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the exercise, the company\u2019s signal intelligence and electronic warfare collection teams intercepted simulated enemy communications. Once the enemy\u2019s location was determined, the coordinates were sent to UAS teams.<\/p>\n
The UAS teams then flew a UAS over the coordinates to confirm the enemy location, followed by flying a second UAS over and dropping munitions on the enemy.<\/p>\n
Soldiers from M Company, 56th MBCT \u2013 the brigade\u2019s multi-functional reconnaissance company \u2013 operated the UASs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have our collection teams out there conducting direction finding, and all that information is getting fed back here to the BICE [brigade intelligence element],\u201d Glass said. \u201cThey\u2019re working it, and then it\u2019s getting sent over to UAS to work positive identification and go through the whole targeting process.\u201d<\/p>\n
A team of Soldiers from the National Guard Bureau at Fort Meade, Maryland, supported the exercise by providing signal emitters to send the simulated enemy communications.<\/p>\n
Warrant Officer 1 Brennan McHugh, signals intelligence technician for the 556th MICO, was tasked with programming the emitters with simulated enemy communications.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am acting in a \u2018white cell\u2019 capacity, so I am orchestrating and coordinating various aspects of the exercise,\u201d McHugh said. \u201cI am programming and placing emitters that will simulate enemy communications and pieces of equipment and ensuring that the exercise is conducive for the signals intelligence Soldiers to do their job.\u201d<\/p>\n
The exercise provided the company with an opportunity to exercise the multi-domain operations, or MDO, concept, McHugh said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are integrating multiple different capabilities that we have here, to include human intelligence, signals intelligence, all-source fusion, geo-spatial intelligence, and we are also being supported by the multi-functional reconnaissance company\u2019s electronic warfare Soldiers,\u201d McHugh said.<\/p>\n
The 556th MICO was activated earlier in 2026 as part of the 56th MBCT\u2019s conversion from a Stryker brigade combat team to an MBCT. Most of the company\u2019s Soldiers were previously part of the 103rd Brigade Engineer Battalion, which was deactivated in March.<\/p>\n
This was the company\u2019s first major exercise since it was activated, Glass said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to figure out how we can support the brigade in its new formation as an MBCT,\u201d Glass said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to become more mobile; we\u2019re trying to decrease the time that it takes to emplace and displace from locations and increase our survivability.\u201d<\/p>\n
The exercise was the culminating event of the company\u2019s two-week annual training, which Glass said went smoothly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got to see a lot of growth from the Soldiers,\u201d Glass said. \u201cThey got a chance to get out in the field and work a lot of different tasks that they haven\u2019t done since Basic Training. It was a good opportunity to get everyone out here working as a team, working through different challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" FORT INDIANTOWN GAP, Pa. \u2013 Pennsylvania National Guard Soldiers focused on locating simulated enemy fighters through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[60192,60191,16831,13529,60190,60189,60188,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-260892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-air-national-guard","tag-army-national-guard","tag-guard","tag-national-guard","tag-national-guard-bureau","tag-ng","tag-ngb","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}