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- The purpose of a comms officer
is to, first and foremost,

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I would argue is to to lead
Marines as a platoon commander,

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especially for second lieutenants.

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In terms of communications,

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it would be to plan and coordinate.

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So we have amazing Marines
that are gonna be able to

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get the job done, build
what we need to build.

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And our job is to kind of facilitate that,

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get the gear that we need and arrange

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for the mission to be completed.

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The scenario here is we
are trying to communicate

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with various radio stations,

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radio nodes throughout the country.

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So some of them are in California,
some of them are in Iowa

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and the purpose is to practice building

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field expedient antennas.

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So the scenario is: here's some gear,

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here's a tric 209, and you gotta build

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a field expedient antenna

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to communicate with various
nodes across the country.

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Combat center is an excellent
place for this training

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because you've got wide open space.

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We can come out here.

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We can basically do any
sort of communications

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practical application
anywhere, versus other bases,

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you might have a lot of obstructions.

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Here, you have wide open space

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so you're gonna be able to set up anywhere

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and communicate over long distances.

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I would say the biggest challenges

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that I've personally faced so far

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have been academics for sure.

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So you're learning a
lot of new information,

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a lot of science, a lot
of technical information

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that you need to learn.

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So that includes learning
signal modulation, batteries,

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electricity, like basic
electrical concepts,

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which I did not know before.

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So for me, it's learning a
whole new type of information

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that I'm not used to, that's
the biggest challenge for me.

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