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Credit to Author: Matt Gallagher| Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2018 10:00:00 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n Satellite dishes mark <\/span>the main gate of Fort Gordon, eggshell white and lasering up at the moon. It\u2019s a modest shrine, as these things go. Many military bases put machines of might on the front porch\u2014tanks or helos or jumbo artillery guns\u2014but the dishes fit Fort Gordon just fine. They\u2019re subtle. They\u2019re quiet.<\/p>\n Inside the gates it\u2019s more of the same. Fort Gordon sits in a soft Georgian basin, the traditional home of the US Army Signal Corps. Signal has been around since the Civil War and has long been responsible for military communications\u2014flags and torches back in the day, radios and cables and mesh networks in the more recent past. Recently, this staple of warfare started sharing its digs with a new branch: cyber<\/a>. Find the right Signal old-timer, maybe one feeling cranky or deep in their cups in a bar along the dark Augusta riverfront, and they\u2019ll talk candidly about this new branch. They say it with envy, and sibling affection. Still, though. They say it.<\/p>\n \u201cDamn showboats.\u201d<\/p>\n Maybe there\u2019s some truth to that; maybe it\u2019s just bureaucrat territorialism. Either way, what\u2019s happening at the US Army\u2019s new cyber branch headquarters marks a change for Fort Gordon. For the surrounding community too, with civic leaders hoping to turn Augusta and its neighboring cities into a national cybersecurity<\/a> hub. Hell, what\u2019s happening with cyber might be changing warfare itself.<\/p>\n And the soldiers charged with carrying it out don\u2019t even carry rifles on missions. Their minds are their weapons, they say.<\/p>\n Silly? It can sound that way. Accurate? It is.<\/p>\n See more from the Life Issue<\/a>. At any given moment at Fort Gordon, instructors in khakis are teaching soldiers at every stage of their career\u2014shiny new privates, steely-eyed noncoms, cherry lieutenants, surly captains. Different courses tailored for different ranks, for months at a time, on how to wage war through computer networks in ways both offensive (disabling enemy networks is one potential tactic) and defensive (trying to find vulnerabilities in US military systems before an adversary can). Meanwhile, elsewhere on the base, about 900 cyber operators who\u2019ve already passed through a form of this training\u201470 percent of the Army\u2019s 1,300 active-duty cyber soldiers\u2014are doing these very things for real.<\/p>\n Well. As real as this kind of thing can be.<\/p>\n Joining the military as a young person has been a rite of passage since time immemorial. See the World. Protect and Defend.<\/em> Endless war adds something else to the calculus of service. An all-volunteer force adds another something else. And drones and computer hacking adds even yet another something else.<\/p>\n The aimless kid who becomes a stud infantry grunt is a stereotype we know well from tales of Americana. Same with the brash overachievers who learn to thrive in the cockpit. But who joins the military to hack computer networks? What does this new type of warfare mean for soldiers, and how does it shape their training? While we\u2019re at it, how does this reflect on us all, as citizens of a republic?<\/p>\n Big questions. Messy answers.<\/p>\n So. Through the Fort Gordon gates, past the Holiday Inn Express, beyond the stark Signal Towers building, seemingly built for the Warsaw horizon after World War II. Hang a left at Domino\u2019s Pizza, then a right at the barracks bursting with young soldier angst. There lies a squat red-brick building. HEADQUARTERS, the sign reads. UNITED STATES ARMY CYBER SCHOOL.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t let the plainness of the building fool you, though. Inside is a laboratory of ideas and ambitions and a home to the Army\u2019s most ardent cyber apostles. Young aspirants can be part of it too. If they\u2019re smart enough. If they\u2019re creative enough. If they\u2019re ready for physical training before dawn. Even Uncle Sam\u2019s hackers need to be fit and trim.<\/p>\n Specialist Elizabeth Stokes<\/strong> A native of Pensacola, Florida, Stokes got her first computer at the age of 7. She joined the Army to \u201clearn from the best.\u201d<\/p>\n Alicia Torres has <\/span>better places to be. Unlike the other soldiers huddling together in a cyber classroom, she wasn\u2019t sent out to meet and greet a visiting journalist. She could be doing a million other things. Like scripting with Python. The 20-year-old from Pennsauken, New Jersey, enjoys doing that in her free time now, even if part of her still considers programming \u201cnerdy.\u201d<\/p>\n Torres is a private, though, and privates without sufficient training can\u2019t walk the cyber school grounds by themselves. Her battle buddy, Elizabeth Stokes, was<\/em> tasked with the meet and greet. They\u2019re the only two women soldiers in their class, and thus are attached to each other with invisible string. So Torres has to be here too. She crosses her arms and scrunches her forehead and looks toward the public affairs officer when I ask about her journey to the Army.<\/p>\n She\u2019s reluctant at first, but eventually, she opens up. Her story would be perfect for a recruiting poster.<\/p>\n Torres has no background with computer programming, which contrasts with most of her cyber school peers. She just happened to crush the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test after high school, and her score on that exam (which is taken by all new recruits) qualified her to go into cyber. \u201cEven my recruiter wasn\u2019t sure what a 17 Charlie was,\u201d Torres says, using the military occupational specialty code for cyber soldier. \u201cHe said it came with an enlistment bonus, though.\u201d Now she\u2019s thriving, inhibitions about becoming a nerd aside. She gets into friendly debates with Stokes about Linux versus Windows, about cyber offensive operations versus defensive operations. She\u2019s not sure her friends from high school would recognize her.<\/p>\n Stokes came to cyber ops more directly. Her recruiter also didn\u2019t know what a 17 Charlie was, but she did. While Torres still has a bit of teenage wistfulness to her personality, Stokes is all pragmatism. A 27-year-old native of Pensacola, Florida, she got her first computer 20 years ago. Some cybersecurity and programming courses in college focused that curiosity, and she came to the Army \u201cto learn from the best,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Stokes says her friends and family didn\u2019t understand why she wanted to join the Army. Pensacola is a Navy town, after all. But Stokes had a different path in mind. This is something many cyber soldiers have in common\u2014they want to show they can excel within an institution. That\u2019s unique when compared to broader Army culture; the worst thing you can do in grunt land is to stand out in the vast sea of camo. Soldiers have to be special to even get to the cyber school, though. They have to be special enough to know it too.<\/p>\n As the students tell it, day-to-day life at the cyber school sounds \u2026 well, boring. In one class I attend, a group of captains give a presentation on how to deploy a weaponized USB drive, complete with a live demonstration during which they insert a routine-looking thumb drive into a routine-looking laptop. Somewhere between the blinking lights and vibrations, an electrical current destroys the computer\u2019s internal components. Later I sit in on a class conducting a tunneling exercise, where data is transmitted around the globe through a series of masked entities, each one helping to obscure the source of the transmission (the better to cover one\u2019s digital tracks).<\/p>\n Torres has no background with computer programming. She just happened to crush the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test after high school.<\/p>\n Later, in the parking lot, the captains from the USB drive demonstration chat with a colonel about a \u201chypothetical\u201d: Russian cyber operators shutting down trains moving troop supplies west to east in Ukraine. How would they do something like that to an enemy network, but better, quicker? It\u2019s an excited conversation and, I\u2019m reminded, very much hypothetical. Then they seem to remember that I\u2019m a journalist, and that\u2019s the end of that.<\/p>\n During our time together, Stokes reveals that she\u2019s begun dreaming in code. It\u2019s often a very specific dream: She has developed a game that helps people with brain injuries. It helps them remember what their minds have lost. She has it all planned out in the dream, but the details get lost when she wakes up and tries to write it down.<\/p>\n With Stokes and Torres the only two women in their class, the question of gender diversity comes up. Torres mentions a support structure within cyber land, women helping women and keeping an eye out for one another. Beyond the gates of Fort Gordon, Brigadier General Jennifer Buckner is seen as a rising star\u2014indeed, in February the Pentagon promoted her to a new position based in Washington, DC, helping direct Army cyber policy.<\/p>\n I ask the two new soldiers what they want to do after the military, whenever that may be. Stokes\u2019 plans don\u2019t stray far from what visits her in sleep. \u201cGo to developing countries to teach coding and programming,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s what I have to offer.\u201d<\/p>\n Torres plans on sticking closer to home. She wants to someday work in software development for Apple, a goal she\u2019s clung to during all the tribulations of training.<\/p>\n Cupertino may have to wait awhile, though. Her company commander at Fort Gordon has recommended she apply to West Point to become an officer. \u201cSometimes people think of the military as a last resort, at least where I\u2019m from,\u201d Torres says. \u201cBut I think I\u2019m learning that it can be for smart people too.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s definitely not something you\u2019d hear in grunt land. The pride is the same, though. So is the belief in making a difference for the better. Squint hard enough, I think, and you can forget what these soldiers are learning to do here. That when they rattle off terms and courses like Wireshark and Snort and OSI, they aren\u2019t debating toothless theoreticals. That what they\u2019re learning could cripple a nation\u2019s defense capabilities in moments, in ways an entire infantry brigade could only fantasize about.<\/p>\n Second Lieutenant Charles Arvey<\/strong> Arvey was 6 years old on 9\/11 when the planes struck the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, so his America has always been at war.<\/p>\n Infantry soldiers crack <\/span>jokes about artillery soldiers being far from the fight. Artillery soldiers crack jokes about pilots. Support soldiers, or fobbits in modern parlance, get the scorn of everyone for working safer (albeit critical) operations like logistics and medical support.<\/p>\n The more distance a soldier has from the enemy, the more resentment there will be from those closer to the action. Cyber soldiers and drone pilots<\/a> are the latest link in this ever-lengthening chain. They wreak havoc in networks and rain death from above in the Forever War, combating enemy terrorist cells and enemy-ish nation-states. Then they go home and ask their kids about algebra. They\u2019ll be able to spend an entire military career stateside, not once setting foot in a war zone yet perpetually at war\u2014a distillation of the strange half-life that US service members have found themselves living since 9\/11.<\/p>\n Go to war. Redeploy home. Go to war again. Redeploy home again. Go to war again.<\/p>\n Cyber soldiers and drone pilots will never do that. And yet. They do it every day.<\/p>\n How military culture absorbs all this is still being sorted through. In 2013 then Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced plans for a Distinguished Warfare Medal, meant to recognize \u201cextraordinary achievements that directly impact on combat operations, but that do not involve acts of valor or physical risk that combat entails.\u201d For drone pilots and cyber operators, essentially. Veterans groups raised hell, due in part to the order of precedence the proposed medal would receive\u2014above the Bronze Star with Valor, for one.<\/p>\n Two months later the new medal was scrapped. That\u2019s light speed in Pentagon time. The definition of what constitutes real war is not fixed\u2014it wasn\u2019t too long ago that snipers were considered cowards by foot soldiers, for example. Now they\u2019re warrior celebrities. Perhaps with time cyber soldiers and drone pilots will be more fully embraced. Fighting on a new front from the rear is a lot to take in after millennia of linear battlespace.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes people think of the military as a last resort, at least where I\u2019m from. But I think I\u2019m learning that it can be for smart people too.\u201d<\/p>\n And with much of their work classified, they can\u2019t tell people a whole lot about how they\u2019re defending our country. Do they inject malware into enemy networks? Do they employ false-information-emplacement operations, like the UK\u2019s MI6 reportedly did with \u201cOperation Cupcake,\u201d substituting bomb-making instructions in an online al Qaeda magazine with cake recipes? Can they disable drones with \u201ccyber rifles\u201d? All straightforward questions\u2014gleaned in part from conversations with experts like Greg Conti, a retired Army officer and coauthor of On Cyber: Towards an Operational Art for Cyber Conflict<\/em>, and Michael Sulmeyer, the director of the Harvard Kennedy School\u2019s Cyber Security Project\u2014and across Fort Gordon all met with a variation of the same response: They really can\u2019t say.<\/p>\n I ask the new cyber lieutenants and privates at Fort Gordon about a potential combat deployment in the future. Like to Afghanistan. It\u2019s not mandatory but possible\u2014some tactical units on the ground do request cyber assets for their command teams. To a soldier, they say the right things, about wanting to do their part, about wanting to go where the action is. But there\u2019s something missing in the exchanges. It\u2019s all hypothetical to them. The war in Afghanistan has always been there for this generation of soldiers. One of them, Charles Arvey, a rangy, ardent second lieutenant, tells me he was 6 on 9\/11, and his America has always been at war. Afghanistan isn\u2019t going anywhere. It\u2019s indefinite and amorphous, the same way 401(k)s and grandchildren are to their peers in the civilian world. They\u2019ll get to it. Maybe. Someday.<\/p>\n Major Summers<\/strong> Summers is the director of the Cyber Leader College at the cyber school.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a violent <\/span>smoothness to Warrant Officer Marcus Edwards\u2019 steps, shoulders rolling like spinning tops. The best in the military learn how to carry themselves this way over the course of a career, whatever their branch. It\u2019s meant to express capability, \u201cI\u2019ll get it done\u201d and \u201cDo not fuck with me\u201d all at once. And Edwards is among the very best operators in cyber. The world isn\u2019t to be reacted to for men and women like this. It\u2019s to be worked through.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the most elite force the Army has created in the 21st century,\u201d says Edwards, who requested I change his first name (but not his last) because of concerns he might be doxed or otherwise cyberharassed by adversaries. He is 33 and a true believer in the cyber branch, having been with it from the beginning. He splits his time between executing live missions and teaching others how to do that. He\u2019s not an excitable sort\u201415 years in uniform will wring that out\u2014but a strange look comes across his face when asked about his profession. \u201cOur skills protect and attack for our country\u2019s interest every day,\u201d he says. \u201cCan\u2019t get that anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n Like other cyber soldiers of rank, Edwards worked previous jobs in the military. He enlisted as a cable dog, a network systems installer and maintainer, responsible for running commo wires. Two tours in Iraq later, he switched to military intelligence, where he served in Hawaii alongside NSA gurus and government contractors. In 2011 he was volun-\u00adtold to report for training to the Army\u2019s then nascent cyber command, which had aspirations of standing up a schoolhouse and even a branch. Of the 125 in that group of proto-\u00adcybers, \u201conly five of us made it,\u201d Edwards says, hinting at the rigors demanded of them.<\/p>\n A native of Hampton, Virginia, he credits the military for molding him into the man he is today. His mom worked supply in the Navy, a single parent with four boys; they didn\u2019t have a lot growing up. Edwards found his way to computer programming in school and credits the National Blue Ribbon Schools Program and the Virginia Air & Space Center for helping shape those interests.<\/p>\n Warrant officers serve a unique role in military units: They\u2019re technical masters who exist somewhat outside the traditional chain of command. It\u2019s an enviable position, one that is hard-earned and comes with a lot of accountability. According to Major Ty Summers, the director of the Cyber Leader College at the school, \u201cCyber is less hierarchal than other branches \u2026 It\u2019s about who can do the job. Enlisted, warrant, officer\u2014all are doing the same thing.\u201d(Summers, like Edwards, requested I change his first name but not his last out of similar concerns about doxing.) Whoever is the best at solving a particular problem set gets that problem set.<\/p>\n This operating environment places a lot of pressure on someone like Edwards, who usually possesses the most digital battle experience on a mission team. I press him to share a bit of the tactics and techniques he\u2019s using as an operator and teaching as an instructor. Instead, he tells me he recently got engaged, and he tells his fianc\u00e9e that he\u2019s \u201csafeguarding, not keeping secrets\u201d by sanitizing work talk at home. That\u2019s just the way it has to be, he says. \u201cSomething will come on the news, and she\u2019ll ask me if it\u2019s true.\u201d Edwards shrugs. \u201cI can\u2019t tell her any more than I can tell you. Sometimes I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut sometimes you do,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n He shrugs again.<\/p>\n After he retires from the military, Edwards says, he\u2019ll probably work for the government as a civilian or go into the private sector. The thrills and daily purpose of digital combat will be tough to replicate in the civilian world. Something like the NSA might offer slivers of that. Silicon Valley will not.<\/p>\n I ask Edwards what he\u2019d tell someone interested in joining the cyber ranks. That strange look sweeps over his face again. I still don\u2019t know exactly what he does on ops, let alone how, but it\u2019s clear he lives for it.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can tear down someone else\u2019s work here.\u201d He smiles to himself, perhaps recalling a successful hacking op. Then he remembers he\u2019s talking to a journalist. \u201cOr build on someone else\u2019s, too. Want to be the best in that? You need to work for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Todd Boudreau\u2014the deputy commandant of the cyber school and a retired chief warrant officer\u2014is one of a few different people I interview who compares what\u2019s happening in cyber to the early Special Forces. The \u00adanalogy isn\u2019t meant to compare the mission types but rather the sense of independence from Big Army, and the esprit de corps therein. I\u2019m not quite sure about it, and the Green Berets I know would object, but what we think doesn\u2019t matter. There\u2019s Good News to preach, and hard work to be done. That\u2019s admirable, at least when it\u2019s coming from people wearing the flag of your country on their shoulder.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not going to get easier,\u201d Boudreau says. He means that cyberwarfare isn\u2019t going anywhere soon. \u201cIt\u2019s only going to get harder.\u201d Boudreau\u2019s words remind me of a passage from How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything<\/em>, a 2016 book by former Pentagon official Rosa Brooks: \u201cCyber battles will most likely be about information and control: Who will have access to sensitive health, personal and financial information \u2026 who will be able to control the machinery of daily life: the servers relied upon by the Pentagon and the New York Stock Exchange, the computers that keep our cars\u2019 brakes from activating at the wrong time, the software that runs our household computers?\u201d<\/p>\n Who will be able to control the machinery of daily life<\/em>: a terrifying idea. If there\u2019s ever a cyber version of the Special Forces Creed\u2014or even a recruitment poster or a retention program\u2014that line needs to be in it. No one at the cyber school acknowledges the possibility of a brain drain to Silicon Valley or government agencies, but it has been raised elsewhere: A 2017 Rand study titled \u201cRetaining the Army\u2019s Cyber Expertise\u201d found that soldiers who qualify to be cyber operators \u201care more likely than others to remain in the Army for at least 72 months; however, they also appear to be somewhat less likely to re-enlist.\u201d<\/p>\n "Who will be able to control the machinery of daily life": If there\u2019s ever a cyber version of the Special Forces Creed, that line needs to be in it.<\/p>\n The NSA\u2019s reported retention issues, coupled with broader government cybersecurity recruitment shortcomings, make it seem like keeping qualified men and women in uniform would be difficult. Bonuses can only do so much, and not everyone will share Edwards\u2019 commitment to the missions. That seems just fine to Boudreau: \u201cOur goal is to figure out how to incentivize for those we want to keep. Truth is, we don\u2019t want to keep everybody.\u201d That briefs well. Regardless, no one is more aware than Boudreau that Army cyber will keep growing, and needs fresh and able minds as it does. Fort Gordon is actively expanding. If current plans hold, by 2028 a new cyber campus will sprawl across the post, all for $907-ish million.<\/p>\n As I leave Fort Gordon for the last time, I again take in the bleak, isolated Signal Towers. It\u2019s really one tower and a nub of a building next to it, the urban legend being that the Army ran out of money before finishing the second vertical structure. Built during the 1960s, Signal Towers is a relic of another military, another country. When wars were finite. When the layers between soldier and citizen weren\u2019t so manifold. When soldiers saw the enemy and the enemy saw back.<\/p>\n Longing for the moral clarity of the Vietnam War feels foolish, so I stop.<\/p>\n Still, I wonder: Is something lost by removing soldiers from witnessing the consequences of their actions? How could there not be? War is not glory. Even when just, no matter how just, war is state-sanctioned violence.<\/p>\n Is something gained, though? That\u2019s a much more difficult question. A darker one too.<\/p>\n Inside Oracle High<\/a> \u2022 Call Me, Maybe<\/a> \u2022 Comp Sci Diversity<\/a> \u2022 Paths to Early Stardom<\/a> \u2022 Why Teens Don't Drive<\/a> \u2022 In Love on Strava<\/a> \u2022 Death of Middle School Romance<\/a> \u2022 Solving Health Issues at All Stages<\/a><\/p>\n Matt Gallagher<\/strong> (@mattgallagher0<\/a>) is a former Army captain and author of the novel<\/em> Youngblood.<\/p>\n This article appears in the April issue. Subscribe now<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Listen to this story, and other WIRED features, on the Audm app<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n
April 2018. Subscribe to WIRED<\/a>.<\/p>\n