ANTHOLOGY AND ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY                                      129


  Communications is another area that we've got to get a lot better on.  We
got ourselves caught a little bit when the Marine Corps was going to a new
system, but I don't think there's any commander out there that doesn't have a
major communications gripe.
  Joint communications is another area we've got to grow in--but good old
communications.      We've got to stop this fancy stuff and the very expensive
stuff.  We've got to get down to some basics.  I told my guys, "I just want to
talk to all the commanders, and all the rest of the guys can use that same node.
We built redundancy into the system.    Luckily, it stayed up. I was never out
of communications for long with anybody I needed to talk to--somehow, some
way, I could get to them.

Proceedings: Did the aircraft use secure voice with the ground units, or were
they in the clear?

Moore: We did use a lot of secure communications.     Almost constant secure
communications in the CAP world, and at the Direct Air Support Center and
TACC, and the control agencies.     But we realized early on that the Iraqis were
not ten feet tall.  In some cases, we were being so cute, with all these changing
frequencies and call signs, that we were outdancing ourselves. We said, "0kay.
We are going to lock-down frequencies, call signs, and all this stuff for a lot of
days in a row.      For example, the ground campaign, we locked~own all this.
We didn't change. We used the same call signs so you knew Playboy-something
or-other was an EA-6B.     The other thing we decided was to stop getting so cute
in the close air support arena; once we got to that final controller, we went in
the clear. If that guy is smart enough to move Out from underneath that bomb
in the last four minutes, then we're fighting the wrong guy. But most important
is having clear and reliable communications. The communications in the desert
was stretched to its maximum.     We kept it simple, and that really paid off.

Proceedings: We haven't talked about the troops much. What impressed you the
most?

Moore: As the media guys came out and talked to them, most of the comments
that I got were, tWe cannot believe that Private Doe came on the air and he was
bright . . . she was intelligent.  Boy, did they come across well." They are
smart, they know what to do, they know how to do it, and they are dedicated.