The 442nd Signal Battalion and the Leader College of Information Technology graduated its first round of Signal Support Systems (25U) and Information Technology (25B) Soldiers from the Signal-Digital Master Gunner Course in a ceremony held June 30. The DMG course, which was the first of three pilot classes, began May 24.

Command Sgt. Maj. Thomas Clark, Fort Gordon command sergeant major, congratulates graduates of the Signal Digital Master Gunner course during a June 30 ceremony. Nick Spinelli Mike Brown, the course manager explained how graduates of the Master Gunner course will be able to take information from a variety of systems and collect it all in one location for a Forward Operating Base commander to have readily available. This will help to make sure no information is missed and any questions pertaining to a decision are at the commander’s fingertips.

“After this course, our Soldiers are capable of managing servers and systems to produce field commander’s common procedure.”

Mark Crenshaw, the government representative involved with the course said Fort Gordon is leading the way in regards to this training.

“This is a brand new, functional course,” he said. “And while there are others in the works at different Army installations, this is the first one to be up and running.”

“It’s a pretty intensive, hands-on course,” said Col. Bruce Caulkins, commandant of the Leader College of Information Technology. “We want Soldiers to get the experience necessary to prepare them for the field. It’s all about the integration of battle groups.”

For all involved, it seems like that’s exactly what Soldiers received.

“It was a lot of information and it was very fast paced,” said Sgt. Bruce Cozine, one of the DMG course graduates. “I learned how to integrate all the systems my battalion uses. I learned a lot.”

Before handing out the graduation certificates,Command Sgt. Maj. Thomas Clark, Fort Gordon command sergeant major, congratulated the Soldiers on completing the training.

“I am very proud of you all, and so is the general and the garrison. On behalf of all of us, congratulations,” he said.

According to the 442nd, the DMG course is one of many established by Training and Doctrine Command in order to fill a training void with current and emerging digital systems in the Army. During the 5-week course, Soldiers’ training included Command Post of the Future, Maneuver Control System, Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below, Blue Force Tracker and the servers that integrate these systems such as Domain Controllers, Battle Command Server, Microsoft Exchange Server and MS Office SharePoint Services. The Network integration system trained is Warfighter Information Network – Tactical and the course focus is at the Brigade Combat Team and Battalion Command Post. Many of these systems run as virtual machines using VMware.

Now that the course is complete, instructors will take the feedback from graduates and apply it to the second class, which begin Sept. 21.