An Army market survey published Monday focuses on two ISV versions: the ISV-9, which carries nine passengers, and the ISV-Utility, which carries five passengers plus a utility bed to haul cargo.

“The estimated total requirement is for 20,787 vehicles (9,003 ISV-9 and 11,784 ISV-U), subject to fund availability and requirements from the U.S. Army, other sister services and potential Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers,” the survey said.

“To ensure the most streamlined, competitive, and cost-effective approach, the government is utilizing the results of this market survey to determine the feasibility of several procurement pathways.”

The ISV, from GM Defense, is based on General Motors’s commercial Colorado and Silverado pickups. GM Defense was awarded a $697.7 million contract modification last month for engineering changes to the ISV-U and the ISV-U Utility Winch Kit, bringing the cumulative value to $915.6 million.

GM Defense announced Oct. 12 that the Army expanded orders for the ISV from an initial 649 to nearly 12,000.

In the market survey, contractors are asked to provide the Army with manufacturing cost estimates based on “varying annual production volumes (e.g., 100, 500, 1,000, and 1,500+ units per year) to evaluate economy-of-scale thresholds.”

The survey also includes a timeline that begins in fiscal 2028 with an acquisition of 106 vehicles. The acquisition continues to fiscal 2036, with the Army receiving around 2,000 to 2,100 vehicles per year.

The survey also listed numerous technical specifications. The ISV-9 and ISV-U will have a maximum vehicle curb weight of 5,200 pounds, plus an operational payload of 5,000 pounds for the ISV-9 and a payload capacity of 5,000 pounds for the ISV-U. Both versions will have a gross vehicle weight rating of up to 10,200 pounds, the survey said.

Both vehicles require baseline military modifications, including blackout lights, 24V electrical systems, main power disconnect, run-flat tires, the ability to ford both salt and fresh water, MIL-STD-814/MIL-STD-209K life and tie-down provisions, 24V NATO slave receptacles on the front and rear bumper, an integrated winch and Military Petroleum, Oils, and Lubricants (POL) compatibility.”

The ISV-9 and ISV-U will have full rollover protection for their passengers. The ISV-U will also have a winch, a 4,000-watt inverter with multiple electrical outlets, towing capacity of up to 6,500 pounds and the capability to carry “non-ambulatory patients as a kit.”

The vehicles should be capable of traveling up to 55 miles per hour on good paved roads and 17 miles per hour cross country.

“Both the ISV-9 and ISV-U shall be capable of traversing longitudinal grades up to 60% and must reliably meet stringent mobility profile requirements across improved, secondary, and un-improved surfaces (trails and cross-country) without fatiguing the occupants when the platform is operating at GVW [gross vehicle weight],” the Army said.

The Army has tinkered with high-altitude balloons for some time, but interest and experimentation have grown in recent years. Against China’s growing arsenal in the vastness of the Pacific, those balloons could provide a cheaper, lower-signature platform that can be employed from dispersed positions, Maj. Gen. Bernard Harrington, commander of the Army’s 7th Infantry Division/Multi-Domain Command-Pacific, or MDC-P, said at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference in Washington, D.C., earlier this month.

Harrington’s command was recently established to merge the ground-maneuver elements of the 7th Infantry Division and long-range capabilities of the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force. Part of the unit’s mission is to operate in space, cyberspace and the electromagnetic spectrum and use long-range fires to help the rest of the Joint Force maneuver, including by opening gaps in China’s anti-access/area-denial network — the air, sea and land-based sensors and weapons designed to keep U.S. forces at bay.

“For us in the Pacific, we really are looking at a specific pacing threat and an anti-access/area-denial network,” against which MDC-P aims to create “windows of opportunity for that Joint Force, whether it be a carrier strike group that’s going to pulse into the weapons engagement zone, whether it be a bomber task force, whether it be a ground unit doing a joint forcible-entry operation,” Harrington said.

High-altitude balloons, or HABs, could facilitate that by carrying “launched effects” — the Army’s term for an aerial system deployed from crewed and uncrewed vehicles for reconnaissance, communications, strikes and other missions. HABs would give MDC-P soldiers more ways to employ attack drones and munitions that are cheaper than “exquisite” missiles, available in greater numbers and harder for adversaries to spot.

Interest in HABs has grown in part due to technological improvements that allow them to stay aloft for weeks or months at a time and give operators more control over where they go. That enhances balloons’ value as platforms for radars and other sensors which, at operating altitudes above 60,000 feet, can see far into rival territory while remaining in international airspace. They also offer a cost-effective complement to satellites, which are more expensive and whose orbits limit their time over any one area.

Harrington described high-altitude balloons as part of “an ecosystem” of data-collecting assets in space, in the air, on land and at sea. HABs in particular could compensate if space-based assets are taken out, Harrington said. “So our ability to employ HABs [and] have HABs be persistent enables both our collection and targeting as well as us [to] provide that information to the Joint Force for their collection and targeting.”

Harrington also described a role for balloon- or unmanned surface vessel-launched effects in kinetic strikes. With the right timing and enough precision, those strikes may not even need to eliminate their target to create an opening.

“Maybe I don’t necessarily need to sink a ship, but if I take out certain systems on that vessel, well, then it creates this temporal window of opportunity,” Harrington said.

“We saw great value [in] that maybe I don’t have to use specifically or unmask an exquisite system to achieve that effect. If I can achieve effect of mass utilizing lower-cost systems, maybe that will get me there,” Harrington added. “So we modeled that, and what we saw was — particularly with our unmanned surface vessels, long-range one-way attack, long-range launched effects — the ability to synchronize and mass that could potentially get us to achieve that effect.”

Harrington’s command experimented with some of those systems during Bayonet Quest 26, an exercise held in Michigan and on Lake Huron from late September to early October. An official video showed soldiers working with air and maritime drones, including a quadcopter launched from a surface vessel and a fixed-wing drone hooked up to a balloon. Harrington said Bayonet Quest tested MDC-P’s ability to “orchestrate those systems” by launching them, gathering data from their sensors, and using AI and LLMs to process that data and produce tasking orders.

“If you see [a potential target], then task a UAS to be able to come over and actually validate if that meets the target folder,” Harrington said, describing the approach. “Then I can task long-range one-way attack [or] an attack USV to be able to achieve that effect or I could send that as a potential fire mission to a more exquisite munition to be able to close that kill chain.”

That reduces the need for a large, easily targetable ground presence, Harrington added: “This is all about integration: Integrate multiple systems into one data layer, be able to lay something like a large language model on top of it, and allow orchestration so we don’t have a lot of soldiers in fixed sites on ground control stations.”

Harrington’s comments come amid a flurry of HAB-related experiments by the Army in North Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the Pacific.

At exercise Valiant Shield in Guam this summer, soldiers experimented with HABs and launched effects “within an island-chain operational construct.” One test sent a HAB aloft towing a long-endurance drone “to evaluate stratospheric payload deployment capabilities.” Soldiers tested the same balloon-drone combo in Japan during Orient Shield in September.

The Army’s Multi-Domain Command-Europe has done dozens of HAB launches over the past year to examine the logistics of employing balloons and to test sensing and communications capabilities using “experimental payloads.”

Speaking alongside Harrington this month, MDC-E commander Brig. Gen. Steven Carpenter said HABs have a role, alongside other sensors and weapons, in opening “windows of opportunity” against anti-access/area-denial networks, in particular by providing resilient communications and additional strike platforms.

“We like to proliferate the stratosphere with high-altitude balloons, but I mean 200, 300 at a time. We like to use them as drones, [communications retransmission], electromagnetic sensing, electronic attack, and then to drop them down and have air-launched effects,” Carpenter said. “During different seasons, the flight paths are different. We study that. We understand during what seasons, where the best places are to launch those high-altitude systems and then, again, to hold enemy cities and capabilities at risk at any time.”

Waddell will be second-in-command to Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster on the National Security Council, the news site reported.

The major general has commanded the 76th Operational Response Command in Utah since October 2015. The command includes two chemical brigades, a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear response task force, 13 elements that support combatant commands and Defense Department agencies, and emergency preparedness liaison officers for all 50 states and three territories.

Waddell has served as the director for European Security Affairs on the National Security Council, according to his military bio. In his 22-year Army career, about 12 years of those on active duty, he has served as deputy commander for mobilization and reserve affairs for U.S. Southern Command in Florida and in several key staff positions in U.S. Central Command and U.S. Forces-Korea.

He has deployed several times — five times to Iraq and three times to Afghanistan, including commanding Combined Joint Interagency Task Force-Shafafiyat — the same command previously held by McMaster — in Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul.

In his civilian career, Waddell ran the Keystone, Capstone, and Pinnacle programs as a Defense Department civilian at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. He previously spent 17 years working in South America, where, among other positions, he was the managing director for South America for oil and gas company BG Group. He was also chief executive officer of mining company Anglo Ferrous Brazil, which was building the largest integrated mining project in the world.

Waddell is a 1982 West Point graduate who has graduate degrees from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and Webster University. He earned a PhD in international relations from Columbia University. He has also published four historical military books, drawing from his experiences in Latin America and the Army, according to his Army Reserve bio.

Waddell will replace McFarland as she steps down to serve as ambassador to Singapore. McFarland was hired by President Trump’s first national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. McFarland will stay on to help Waddell transition into the new role until she leaves for Singapore later this year, according to Politico.

Flynn resigned after he acknowledged that he hadn’t fully disclosed conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Trump appointed McMaster, an Army lieutenant general, as the new adviser in February. 

Army Reserve Command officials referred all questions to the White House. 

Charlsy Panzino covers the Guard and Reserve, training, technology, operations and features for Army Times and Air Force Times. Email her at cpanzino@militarytimes.com.  

Soldiers have been enduring missions in the wet, humid Pacific with boots geared toward the hotter, drier environments of Iraq and Afghanistan. The result: soggy, heavy boots.

The Army has been testing new uniform designs over the past year and a half to help soldiers perform in tropical regions, and now officials say they want to take those designs to the field.

Col. Dean Hoffman IV, project manager for Soldier Protection and Individual Equipment at PEO Soldier, said the Army can use the Soldier Enhancement program to find off-the-shelf solutions for equipment problems.

“We focused on the Middle East a long time,” Hoffman said, but now the focus is turning to tropical environments.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley recently visited the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii, where he saw limited user evaluations on jungle uniforms and boots, Hoffman said at the Association of the United States Army conference.

Milley wants to get the new boots out in the field as fast as possible, Hoffman said.

“We saw the characteristics and capabilities that soldiers desire in a boot,” he said.

The boots undergoing testing aim to be puncture resistant, yet also comfortable, supportive and quick drying. 

The Army sent out a directed requirement so “we can get two [brigade combat teams] in Hawaii equipped with jungle combat boots by the end of calendar year [2017],” Hoffman said.

“One of the things we’re trying in an effort to expedite contracting is we’re going to use this request for information to see what industry can do hopefully faster,” he said.

It’s challenging to find a company that can meet the price and schedule requirements, Hoffman said, but the goal is to equip the first BCT with the jungle boots by March.

Charlsy Panzino covers the Army and Air Force. Email her at cpanzino@militarytimes.com.

Dr. Joshua Corsa, a surgical resident at the Orlando Regional Medical Center in Florida, recalled receiving a page from his boss in the early morning June 12, a message announcing an active shooter, with up to three victims who would require treatment.

“And like most urban trauma centers in this country, that’s not particularly unusual,” Corsa, who served as a medic in the Army Reserve and National Guard, told Army Times. “We’ve had five, six people shot in a drive-by on a regular basis. Not regular, but it’s not uncommon. Maybe every six months or so. I didn’t think much of it, so I started walking toward the trauma bay.”

Then came more details of what would become the largest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, one taking place at a nightclub just a few blocks down the street. Corsa, expecting at least a few minutes to pass as ambulances reached the hospital, began his walk to the trauma center.

Then, another page: Patients arriving. Now.

He broke into a run. When he reached his destination, two critically injured patients were already there. Corsa began setting into his role assessing patients and directing traffic — the “pit boss,” a co-worker called him — when he happened to look up toward the trauma bay.

“I saw literally a truckload, a pickup truck drop off four more patients,” he said. “They started rolling toward me. It just didn’t stop after that.”

Air Force Reserve Maj. (Dr.) Charles Hunley, a critical care specialist at the center, recalled a similar scene.

“I walked into the trauma bay and saw people on ambulance stretchers without anywhere to go,” said Hunley, a critical care air transport physician with the 920th Rescue Wing out of Florida’s Patrick Air Force Base. “And I had to get airways. I had to intubate the patients. There was nobody there but me and maybe one other person.

“I remember thinking this is what I’d been training for. That this was going to be one of the most memorable nights we would have in a very, very long time, if not ever.”

Organized chaos, military discipline

Hunley went into “military mode,” he said, but his military training wasn’t geared toward treating dozens of incoming civilian casualties. As a “CCAT guy,” he said, his job is to stabilize the wounded in theater and get them to a safe, modern care facility, otherwise known as a Role 4 hospital.

Now, he was at a Role 4 hospital. And the injuries were coming to him.

That meant triage — color-coding those who were already stable, those who needed help, and those who were beyond it. He marshaled staffers to apply tourniquets. He rounded up young internal medicine residents — “They had no idea how to take care of sick people,” he said — and tasked them with monitoring the stable patients.

“I don’t know if that’s been done in the United States other than 9/11 — that many patients, all at once, into a hospital. I can honestly tell you that my military training was invaluable.”

At the time of the shooting, Corsa had been out of the Army for about a decade. He joined the North Carolina Army National Guard in 1997, then moved to the Washington Guard for a span that included eight months in Kosovo with a public affairs detachment. He left as a private first class in 2006, after four years in the Individual Ready Reserve.

His medical training while in service became a springboard to becoming a surgeon. But his advanced skills never overshadowed that foundation.

“That initial training in triage, being a medic, everything since then has really built off that,” he said. “It’s going back to that base … that the Army had laid, just in terms of a methodical, measured approach to it. Evaluating the patients, triaging them appropriately, staying calm, I think that all stretches back to my initial training in the Army.”

Pushing forward … and looking back

Forty-nine victims died in the shooting at the Pulse nightclub, including an Army reservist and a former member of the Puerto Rico National Guard. Corsa and Hunley were far from the only ones with military experience to respond: A Marine veteran serving as a bodyguard at the club was credited with saving dozens of lives thanks to his actions as the shooting began, and others at the medical center brought their military experience to the tragedy.

Forty-four victims were seen by hospital personnel, the Los Angeles Times reported. Both doctors saw aspects of their military training in the crisis response.

Corsa: “I’ve told this story a couple of times, I don’t think it’s ever made it into print, but the amount of teamwork we had. I remember in the midst of all this chaos, we had one or two housekeepers, I remember one in particular, and she’s there with her little broom and trash can, and as we’re rolling a patient out, which probably happened every two or three minutes, she’s getting as much trash off the floor as she can, mopping up blood — lots of blood, everywhere. Everyone really did their part — they didn’t do their part, they did their part and then so much more. … To see that level of teamwork, it was something I hadn’t really seen since the military.”

Corsa also said he still sees the faces of some of the victims “a few dozen times a day.” As time passes, he and Hunley both have dealt with another aspect of military life for many service members: post-traumatic stress.

Along with hospital support and military outreach, help has come from less-expected places. Corsa, a motorcycle rider, said members of the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association have been critical to his recovery, as have some of the patients he assisted and their families, who often check up on his well-being as he’s providing follow-up care.

It’s all part of Corsa’s personal recovery process. And there’s also the matter of the sneakers.

Viral footwear: How not to post

It was supposed to be a simple Facebook statement to his friends — a photo of his blood-soaked sneakers, worn while shooting victims were shuttled around his trauma center, with an accompanying pledge to wear the shoes until the last patient from that night left the hospital. A way to show his resolve to 100 or so Facebook friends who’d been worried about him in the aftermath of the tragedy.

“On these shoes … is the blood of 54 innocent human beings,” Corsa wrote, in part. “This blood, which poured out of those patients and soaked through my scrubs and shoes, will stain me forever. In these Rorschach patterns of red I will forever see their faces and the faces of those that gave everything they had in those dark hours.” (You can hear him read the whole piece here.)

When one of his CVMA friends asked to share it, Corsa said, “Sure. Why not?”

“He shared it, and then a couple of other people shared it, and the next morning, I woke up and was actively flabbergasted,” Corsa said. “I had never expected it to have the kind of response, the kind of attention. …

“I did panic, and I took the post down. I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is insane.’ Once it hit 300-some-odd-thousand [shares] I thought, this is not what I wanted. I took it down. I thought about it, I put it up again a couple of days later.”

Local media interviewed Corsa about the shoes. He and his famous footwear appeared multiple times on network newscasts. He’s still wearing the sneakers, he said in a follow-up email, as a single patient from that night remained hospitalized as of early August.

“The goal was never for it to be about me,” he said. “It was to be about us, the city and the victims. … All I did was stand there and give people orders. I’m not the hero, by any stretch.”

He had intended to keep the shoes in his office, possibly as a conversation piece as he instructed young residents. He’s now considering donating them.

If they do leave Corsa’s feet and office, at least one co-worker may not miss them all that much.

“I have to admit, I was pissed at him because he’s my resident,” Hunley said, describing his reaction to the viral post. “I was like, ‘Josh, what the hell are you doing?’ And then later, I was like, that’s his way of coping with it.

“I don’t cope with it that way.”

The positive message delivered by the post was worth the added attention, Corsa said, crediting the hospital staff for helping him deal with the unexpected media crush.

Still, he said, “I’m not that good with Facebook, obviously, otherwise this post would’ve never gotten out.”

Hunley started with the 920th just a few months before the shootings. He called his new unit “one of the best critical care air transport teams in the Air Force” and said he’s finally ready to give up what he jokingly called “escaping Orlando” — no matter where his civilian or military career has taken him, he seems to return to the area, where his father retired after his own Air Force career.

And while Hunley’s military career continues, Corsa’s just restarted: The former enlisted solider is now Capt. Corsa, battalion surgeon with the Florida National Guard’s 2nd Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment.

It was a decision he’d made long before the nightclub shooting, one that took about 18 months to come to fruition, featuring “bureaucracy, triplicate forms and everything else,” Corsa said.

It stemmed, he said, from a simple desire to repay what he considers a debt to the Army.

“I looked back at everything we’ve gone through in the past 15 years, and I wasn’t able to play a role in it,” he said. ” And now I’m a doctor, I’m a surgeon no less, I think I’ve finally got something to give back to the military, which gave me so much. This is my chance to do that.”