YONGSAN GARRISON, South Korea — U.S. Forces Korea’s major communication command has completed an annual external evaluation, and now awaits results from Fort Meade, Md., exercise evaluators.

According to early returns, the EXEVAL — which evaluates how the 1st Signal Brigade would transition from peacetime to wartime operations — went well.

“I saw a lot of improvements in the short time we were out there,” said Col. Timothy O’Hara, 1st Signal’s deputy commander and lead exercise controller, in an Army news release. “In the fog of war, a confident staff will do well.”

The peninsula-wide exercise was presided over by officials from the 311th Theater Signal Command, a Fort Meade unit that would command signal units in South Korea if a war broke out. To increase the challenge, exercise controllers threw a series of wrinkles into the scenario.

While 1st Signal units set up communications relays and switches at some 40 locations, a “white cell” of opposition forces wreaked simulated havoc on the brigade’s assets.

“We tried to create damage and destruction to force the staffs to do some creative cross-leveling,” O’Hara was quoted as saying.

The White Cell blew up every fuel tanker available to the brigade and contaminated the remaining fuel supplies on the peninsula. Some of the scenarios also included weapons of mass destruction, to “stress the system,” officials stated.

From the evaluators’ perspective, the seemingly-outlandish scenarios helped push the exercise beyond routine.

“You have to be careful not to fall into what’s easy and convenient. From an operational security perspective, this can be deadly,” stated Brig. Gen. George Smith, deputy commander of the 311th Theater Signal Command and senior evaluator.

The exercise results will be compiled soon by the 311th, officials stated.

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