“IT’S ABOUT THE SOLDIER WHO’S GOING TO GET OUR EQUIPMENT. AND IF WE DON’T DO IT RIGHT, THEY’RE THE ONES WHO ARE SACRIFICING THEIR LIVES.”
MARK FRYE
Role and organization: Contractor for Augustine Consulting Inc., supporting the Nett Warrior program under PEO Soldier
NIEs participated in: 3
Mark Frye operates on a simple principle: Give the Soldier what the Soldier asks for.
The Nett Warrior story is by now familiar: Following Soldier feedback at NIE 11.2 in summer 2011, Army leadership quickly restructured the program to take advantage of the latest commercial technology. The new lighter, cheaper version is a smartphone- like mission command system that connects with a tactical radio to provide dismounted leaders with increased situational awareness and mission-related applications.
But even before Nett Warrior became a prime example of NIE success, Frye was applying the same principle. In the development of Land Warrior, Nett Warrior’s predecessor, “what the Soldier said mattered,” he said. “If a Soldier gave me a piece of information, saying, ‘I want this thing called a chem light you because it was your idea anyway,” Frye said. “By their own actions, by helping us, they have taken ownership of the process.”
In the NIE environment, that concept extends to the Army’s entire tactical net- the feedback loop on such a large scale, Frye said, “it’s a consistent learning process” that has improved with each NIE and is now “get- ting more focused on the ultimate outcome”
equipment, so this gives us the opportunity to get it right,” he said—“to talk to the Soldiers and say, ‘What can we do better for you?’ ”
after 22 years on active duty, Frye has been with the Nett Warrior program for more than four years. He is familiar with the fog of war that can descend on the lowest echelons closest to the tactical edge.
“The scariest thing on the battlespace is the unknown,” he said. “At team leader and above, a specialty skill is getting all the infor- mation they need to alleviate as much of that fog as physically possible.”
Nett Warrior does that by eliminating the time delay and human error associated with radio communications, instead giv- ing Soldiers networked handheld devices to exchange messages and digitally track one another’s locations. For a young team leader faced with a tough decision in battle, Frye said, that information could make the differ- ence between life and death.
Keeping that outcome in mind helps NIE personnel stay committed despite the long hours in the desert and frustrations of learn- ing a new process, he said.
“You have to want to be able to quickly adapt to people you’ve never met before, for the sole purpose of integration—to get it right,” Frye said. “Because it’s not about you or me. It’s about the Soldier who’s going to get our equipment. And if we don’t do their lives.”
ASC.ARMY.MIL
35
ACQUISITION
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