1st Signal Brigade
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From a satellite in orbit 18,200 miles above the Pacific Ocean to a courier on a dusty Vietnamese road, the 1st Signal Brigade passes the word into, out of and within Southeast Asia. With more than 20,000 men scattered among more than 200 sites in Vietnam and Thailand, the brigade is the largest combat signal unit ever formed and controls the most comprehensive military communications-electronics systems in the history of warfare. Its mission is very simply put: communication. Since its organization on April 1, 1966, the brigade has fulfilled this mission by planning, engineering, installing, operating and maintaining both the Southeast Asian portion of the Army's worldwide strategic communications system and extensive area communications systems in Vietnam and Thailand. All communications entering or leaving Vietnam must pass through facilities operated by the brigade, which consists of six subordinate signal groups, five in Vietnam and one in Thailand. In the more than three years of its existence the 1st Signal team has provided communications of a scope never before achieved in a combat zone. The primary mission is to "keep the shooters talking" but as the last sentence of every signal unit mission outlines, the communicator will "perform as infantry" when required. This he has done admirably.
