Puslatpur 5, Indonesia — During the course of Super Garuda Shield 2024, two U.S. Navy Sailors navigate a sea of U.S. Army Soldiers.

Electronics Technician (ET) First Class Jaycob Ferguson and Information Systems Technician (IT) First Class Jesus Sanchez stand out in their U.S. Navy uniforms amidst the larger number of Soldiers. While the colors are similar, the uniform style and pattern easily make them look different from the Soldiers.

Ferguson and Sanchez were hand-selected to be individual augmentees, based on their expertise in their respective fields, to represent the U.S. Navy and act as liaisons with the U.S. Army communications team for the joint combined communications team (C6). Ferguson and Sanchez were integrated into the C6 element, including U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Army and TNI personnel.

Ferguson said “We act as the bridge between the ship [USS Green Bay] and the Army elements on the ground. Our main goal is to make successful contact with the ship, because Army and Navy systems do not really talk very well.”

A few challenges arose due to differences between U.S. Army and U.S. Navy communication systems. Ferguson explained the team made a trip to the USS Green Bay (LPD 20) when it was in port to explain the goal of connecting communication. On a subsequent trip to the ship while it was underway, Ferguson stated, “We worked with our ET and IT counterparts on the ship, discovering a few issues that we were able to correct.”

Ferguson explained there were issues on both ends. “When we got back from the ship, it looked like we had some equipment difficulties as well. We took down the entire antenna and reconfigured the whole thing, rewired things too.”

Ferguson and Sanchez overcame the challenges and established a working solution to ensure communications with USS Green Bay (LPD 20) were up and running.

Sanchez explained, “We have communications with the ship, not just what we had intended originally.”

Sanchez said, “The terminology was a big barrier, because the Army has different terms than the Navy does, so that was a little challenging.” He continued to say, “Even when the Navy uses the same communications equipment or system as the Army, we use it differently.”

Sanchez described the joint environment as welcoming and helpful, stating “Col. King wanted us to establish communications with the ship. Anything that we needed, whether it was to get onto a Black Hawk to fly to the ship, he said ‘Ok, let’s do it.’”

Ferguson described the joint environment as a learning experience, “I didn’t know how the Army operated, or they integrated with Navy [elements], so it was interesting to see how branches work together.”

At the end of the day, Ferguson and Sanchez achieved their goal of establishing successful communication with the ship and were able to integrate with their U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps counterparts in the joint environment.