Deputy Secretary of Defense Dr. Kathleen H. Hicks Travels to Texas to Visit Army Futures Command and Fort Hood

 May 10, 2021

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Deputy Secretary of Defense Dr. Kathleen H. Hicks is travelling to Texas where she will visit Army Futures Command (AFC) and meet with Commanding General, John M. “Mike” Murray and personnel from AFC for an overview of their mission. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, AFC has over 26,000 personnel around the world assigned to the organization. Army Futures Command leads the persistent modernization of the Army in order to provide future warfighters with the concepts, capabilities, and organizational designs needed to dominate a future battlefield. AFC integrates on a daily basis with entrepreneurs, scientists, and businesses to harness the entrepreneurial spirit of accepting the risk of failure early and cheaply in order to create the best solution for our soldiers.

Deputy Secretary Hicks will also travel to Killeen, Texas, where she will get a chance to meet with soldiers and leaders at Fort Hood – home of the U.S. Army’s III Armored Corps.

DOD Aims to Transform Itself Into a Data-Centric Organization

 May 10, 2021 | BY David Vergun , DOD News

Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen H. Hicks signed a memorandum to transform the Defense Department into a data-centric organization with the goal, she said, of "improving warfighting performance and creating decision advantage at all echelons from the battlespace to the board room."

The May 5, "Creating Data Advantage," memo specifies the department's first-ever "data decrees" that are designed to "generate transformative proficiency across the DOD data strategy's focus areas of Joint All-Domain Operations, senior leader decision support and business analytics."

Deputy Secretary of Defense Memorandum

The goals of the data decrees, she said, are:

• Maximizing data sharing and rights for data use.
• Publishing data assets in the DOD federated data catalog along with common interface specifications.
• Using automated data interfaces that are externally accessible and machine-readable and ensuring interfaces use industry-standard, non-proprietary, preferably open-source, technologies, protocols and payloads.
• Storing data in a manner that is platform and environment-agnostic, uncoupled from hardware or software dependencies.
• Implementing industry best practices for secure authentication, access management, encryption, monitoring and protection of data at rest, in transit and in use.

"Data is essential to preserving military advantage, supporting our people and serving the public," Hicks stated in the memo.

"Leaders at all levels have a responsibility to manage, understand and responsibly share and protect data in support of our shared mission. Data enables capabilities such as [artificial intelligence], machine learning and various autonomous technologies. It is critical to warfighters seeking advantage on the battlefield, and it is critical to decision makers," she said.

In order to accelerate the department's data transformation, the memorandum empowers the DOD chief data officer to provide leadership and issue guidance regarding the DOD's data ecosystem — people, technology and culture — data sharing, data architecture, data lifecycle management and a data ready workforce. It also highlights the importance of dedicated data leaders empowered with the resources and authority to shape key investment decisions and build the data workforce.

The memo lays out an aggressive timeline for assessing and developing courses of action to consolidate data efforts in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, reviewing data management and analytic platforms to find opportunities to gain efficiencies, scaling proven capabilities across the enterprise and looking for additional help from current members of the Defense Department's workforce who can join this transformative effort.

Related Publication: Deputy Secretary of Defense Memorandum

Stratotanker Walk-Through

 

Air Force Tech. Sgt. Vince Stokes walks through a KC-135R Stratotanker at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., May 6, 2021.

Ocean Live-Fire

 

Marines conduct a live-fire range aboard the landing ship USS Carter Hall in the Atlantic Ocean, April 13, 2021.

COVID-19 Vaccine

 

Air Force Senior Airman Carmen Gerda administers a COVID-19 vaccination to a service member at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Tucson, Ariz., May 6, 2021. Gerda is an aerospace medical technician assigned to the 162nd Medical Squadron, The Arizona National Guard is partnering with active-duty components to increase vaccinations to service members and their dependents.

Medical Supplies

 

Army Pvt. Edwin Gallardo helps stabilize a pallet of medical supplies at the Cashman Center vaccination site in Las Vegas, May 5, 2021. Task force personnel have helped inoculate more than 200,000 Nevadans against COVID-19 this year.

Seahawk Perch

 

Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Trevor Griego tightens the bleed air clamps on the engine of an MH-60S Seahawk aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the Gulf of Alaska, May 3, 2021, to support Exercise Northern Edge 2021 flight operations. Pacific Air Forces is hosting the joint exercise, which involves about 15,000 U.S. service members.

Dash of Color

 

Soldiers, family members and members of the community throw environmentally safe powdered paint into the air during the Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers program's Dash of Color 5K fun run at Camp Humphreys, South Korea, May 8, 2021.

Navy Softball Champion Has Aspirations for Becoming a Chief

 May 10, 2021 | BY David Vergun , DOD News

Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have shaped the history of the United States and have had their lives dramatically influenced by moments in its history. Every May the Defense Department joins the rest of the nation in celebrating Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. 

Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Paul Salas, said this month is special for him. He was born in Guam, is of Pacific Island heritage and was raised in Visalia, California.

About 15 years ago, Salas decided to join the Navy to serve and protect the freedoms Americans enjoy, he said, adding that he also joined to better himself.

From 2007 to 2010, he served on the USS Whidbey Island, a dock landing ship, as an engineman. After that, he served aboard the USS Chafee, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer based in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, from 2011 to 2014.

While stationed there, Salas said the Navy converted his rating to machinist mate.

After another assignment at Everett, Washington, Salas said he's now aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, based in nearby Bremerton. He works in the reactor department.

Besides working in his military occupational specialty, Salas has also been a member of the All-Navy Softball team since 2018.

During the 2018 season, he said his team was co-silver medalist for the Armed Forces Tournament and, during the 2019 season, Champions of the World Sports League Military Tournament, of which each team member received championship rings.

"What I have learned from playing softball is that it is okay to lean on your fellow teammates for help," he said. "It also taught me how to create an everlasting bond with my teammates because we are all there putting in the work so that we can go home with our heads up high. 

"I've learned no matter how bad you or another teammate fails, try and pick them up and encourage them to learn from the failure and continue to strive," he added.

Salas said his future goals are to earn a college degree and get promoted to chief.