WASHINGTON — With an eye on lone-wolf attacks against US troops, the Army official responsible for protecting its installations at home said he wants an "Amber alert" style notification system for Army bases.
Army North's commander, Lt. Gen. Perry Wiggins, said he has asked his force protection cell to examine such notification technology, a move that comes after a radicalized gunman killed five service members at a Chattanooga, Tennessee, recruiting center in July. Wiggins said he was concerned about protecting troops and their families from "homegrown violent extremists."
Like the Amber alert system used to notify people about child abductions, the system would send alerts to the mobile phones of soldiers and family members — a step beyond a system in use now, which sends alerts to desktop computers. College campuses use systems tied to mobile phones, Wiggins said, and the Army could too.
"You have to figure out how to communicate, you have to figure out how to get information out, and you have to use technology that's available, I believe," Wiggins told reporters at a Defense Writer's Group breakfast. "How do we get information out, how do we use systems that are already on their persons, so that we can ensure the safety of our formations?"
Military bases have not been immune to the shooting rampages making headlines across the country — attributed to violent extremism or not. A gunman killed 12 people and injured others during a shooting rampage at the Washington Navy Yard in 2013; a sailor was killed at the Norfolk Shipyard in 2014; and there were two shooting incidents at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2014 and 2009.
Asked whether soldiers on Army installations should be armed, a hot-button issue, Wiggins demurred, saying that the option of arming troops and its repercussions is being studied, "at the highest levels."
"We will execute, and I trust in the leadership, that they are looking at it from all angles," he said.
Wiggins said the alert system is one of several avenues he is reviewing looking down in relation to force protection, including dialogue with first responders, and local and state officials. It seems to have merit because of the ubiquity of smartphones, particularly among young people, he said.
Email: jgould@defensenews.com
Twitter: @reporterjoe
Joe Gould was the senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry. He had previously served as Congress reporter.
