The U.S. Army Military Auxiliary Radio
System (AMARS) is an elite group of dedicated citizen volunteers who support the Department of Defense (DoD) in a variety of
circumstances, including complex catastrophes and cyber denied or impaired
conditions. MARS is a DoD program that
trains, organizes and tasks volunteer Amateur Radio operators.
AMARS citizen-volunteers demonstrate the Army's values of Loyalty, Duty,
Respect, Selfless-Service, Honor, Integrity and Personal Courage, freely and
generously giving their time and resources as a reflection and measure of
devotion to our nation.
The world has changed dramatically since the MARS structure was first
developed and implemented but what has not changed is the dedication of these
citizens to serve.
Army
MARS Today
The US Army Network Enterprise
Technology Command (NETCOM) is the Department of the Army (DA) executive agency
for AMARS and has Headquarters at Fort Huachuca, AZ. NETCOM is the Army’s premier Information
Technology Service Provider and cyber protection force that plans, engineers,
installs, integrates, protects, defends and operates Army Cyberspace enabling
mission command through all phases of Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmental and
Multinational operations. NETCOM
reports to US Army Cyber Command (ARCYBER).
AMARS today supports activities of many
types. Activities may include DoD directed
international Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) activities,
supporting National Guard training and operations or supporting Federal Government
agencies. These activities supplement
MARS’s primary function to provide contingency communications support to the
DoD, the combatant commands and their components.
The 21St
CENTURY Army MARS Volunteer
Individual citizen volunteers located
in communities throughout the United States operating their radio stations on
the same net with military and government stations makes MARS unique and
distinctive. It is a special kind of
citizen that does this.
Individual Member volunteers in AMARS are
expected to take the initiative in expanding their existing foundation in
electronics and radio communications through independent study in the areas of communications
technology. MARS volunteers improve
their Amateur Radio station for operation on all frequencies between 2-30 MHz
and utilize technology that is not normally used in Amateur Radio.
In 1925 when the Army Amateur Radio
Service (AARS) was established, radio was a new technology and an understanding
of radio was enough for citizen volunteers to be of value to military and
government operations. In the 90
years since the AARS was founded, the requirement has evolved as radio and
cyberspace have merged into a single telecommunications medium. The 21st century brings new
challenges to Army MARS and its volunteer corps. Radio is only a small component of the larger
cyber concept of operations. The modern MARS member must be an expert in RF
communications, its associated equipment, and Information Technology.
The 21st Century MARS member
is expected to mitigate risk in cyberspace, maintain operational and cyber
security, recover quickly from a cyber incident, utilize different types of
encryption tools, as well as establish reliable, interoperable communications
links using HF radio when access to cyberspace is impaired or denied.