DISCUSSION OF TECHNOLOGY, RHETORIC, AND CULTURE

DAVID R . HARO

Call For Fire Trainer

Introduction

Fire Support Specialist (Forward Observer)

Calling for Fire

Call for Fire Procedure

Call For Fire Trainer

NOVA Technologies (1997)

Trains FIST Specialists and JFOs

Institutional and Unit level

Langdon Winner, “Technology as Forms of Life”

“Synthetic conditions generated in the training center had begun to seem more ‘real’ than the actual experience”

“The crucial weakness of the conventional idea is that it disregards the many ways in which technologies provide structure for human activity”

“…the devices, techniques, and systems we adopt shed their tool like qualities to become part of our very humanity”

Interview Questions

Q1: How has your experience been calling for fire in a virtual simulator and actually doing it in the real world?

Q2: Why is it so important to have the Call For Fire trainer and your opinion on its importance for the United States Armed Forces?

Interview: (RET) Staff Sergeant Keith Goley

Former Squad Leader, Det 2 HHC 1/252 CABQ1 Answer:

“You have 100% accurate scale and depth. Most importantly you have the real ‘boom!“’ This, of course helps with the accurate ‘flash to bang’ to give you accurate distance, but it does much more for the motivation and confidence factor of calling for fire.”Q2 Answer:

“The cost to buy one simulator is significantly less than the cost to pay a bunch of joes to lob real HE rounds all day on a hill.”

“…it gives a venue for soldiers to try new things and build their confidence before using real live ammo.”

More of Winner

“…technologies are being built and put to use, significant alterations in patterns of human activity and human institutions are already taking place”

“…the very act of using the kinds of machines, techniques, and systems available to us generates patterns of activities and expectations that soon become ‘second nature’”

Rhetoric and Culture

RhetoricSynthetic and Reality

Providing the CFFT

Understanding the CFFT

Experience Passed On

CultureMilitary/Field

Artillery

Training

Support

The need to progress

Works Cited

Goley, Keith. SSG Keith Goley. 2007. Photograph. Deployment, N/A.

Haro, David. SFC Chandler. 2013. Photograph. Hilton University, Charlotte, NC.

Military-Graphics. FIRE Support. 2014. U.S. Army Unit Decals, City. www.Military-Graphics.com. Logo. 23 Apr. 2014.

SSG Pryor, Michael. Forward Observer, 2ndBCT, 82ndARBN. 2008. Photograph. Fort Bragg, NC.

U.S. Army. "Call for Fire Trainer (CFFT)." Call for Fire Trainer (CFFT). U.S. Army PEO STRI, 26 Nov. 2012. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.

U.S. Army. Students training on the CFFT. 2012. Photograph. Guard FIST, Fort Sill, OK.

Winner, Langdon. "Technologies as Forms of Life." The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1986: 3-18.

Zach, Gertrud. Training Support Activity Europe, 7thUSA Joint Multinational Training Command. 2008. Photograph. Grafenwoeher, GER.