PUBLISHED BY THE ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY www.ausa.org July 11, 2024 | AUSA Extra 1 Civil War heroes receive Medal of Honor M ore than 160 years after participating in what’s now known as the Great Loco- motive Chase, Pvts. Philip Shadrach and George Wilson were posthu- mously awarded the Medal of Honor. The two Civil War heroes were recognized with the nation’s high- est award for valor by President Joe Biden during a July 3 ceremony at the White House. “This was a long time coming,” Biden said during the ceremony, as he described the Great Locomotive Chase as “one of the most daring op- erations in the entire Civil War.” “The risks to this mission were enormous,” Biden said. “All the men were given the chance to walk away. Not one of them did.” Pvts. Philip Shadrach, left, and George Wilson were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions in what is now known as the Great Locomotive Chase. (U.S. ARMY PHOTOS) Human Oversight Key to Information Operations 3 Army Warns Troops of Online Attacks 4 NCO & Soldier Programs Teaching Soldiers Life Skills 6 Chapter Highlights Maj. Samuel Woodfill Community Partner Challenge 7 IN THIS ISSUE VOLUME 6 NUMBER 11 JULY 11, 2024 See Medal of Honor, Page 3 Gerald Taylor, Shadrach’s great- great-nephew, and Theresa Chan- dler, Wilson’s great-great-grand- daughter, accepted the award from the president. “To volunteer for a venture they knew little about, and to know if they failed, they would be put to death, makes me realize how dedicated they were,” Taylor said. Shadrach and Wilson belonged to the 2nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment. In April 1862, they joined 20 other Union soldiers and two civilians on a daring mission led by James An- drews, a Kentucky-born civilian spy, to infiltrate Confederate territory, steal a locomotive and drive it north nearly 200 miles while destroying enemy railroad tracks and telegraph lines. The goal was to destroy rail and communication lines and pre- vent reinforcements from interfering with an attempted capture of Chat- tanooga, Tennessee. Shadrach was just 21 years old. The Union team, which became known as Andrews’ Raiders, infiltrat- ed the South in small groups, dressing in civilian clothes to avoid suspicion. On April 12 at Big Shanty, Georgia, 22 of the raiders commandeered a lo- comotive known as the General. They uncoupled the engine, fuel car and three boxcars before escaping with the train, according to the Army. They sped up the track, cut telegraph lines and tried to burn bridges along the way, according to the Army.LEARN MORE & REGISTER ONLINE AT WWW.AUSA.ORG/EVENTS Join us on Tuesday, 30 July, at 12:00 PM EDT, to hear a presentation by Dr. Lester Martinez-Lopez, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs. He will give a top-to-bottom rundown on MHS Genesis, the Military Health Service’s state-of-the-art, streamlined electronic health record system, designed for servicemembers, veterans and their families. 30 JULY 2024 1200–1300 EST JOIN THE DISCUSSION! This webinar will include a Q&A session in which questions submitted by the audience will be selected and asked by the moderator. A recording of the webinar will be available on our Youtube page the following day. DR. LESTER MARTINEZ-LOPEZ Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Moderated by Joseph Caravalho, Jr., M.D. Major General, U.S. Army (Retired) President and CEO, The Henry M. Jackson Foundationwww.ausa.org ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY July 11, 2024 | AUSA Extra 3 Panel: Army should not rely on AI models like ChatGPT A s the U.S. Army works to be- come a more datacentric or- ganization, the one thing it should not do, according to a panel of experts, is rely too heavily on ar- tificial intelligence large-language models to get there. “Don’t do it,” said Stephen Riley, a customer engineer on Google’s Army engineering team, in a discussion July 2 at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Hot Topic on cyber and infor- mation advantage. “It’s the easy button,” he said, but using large-language models, or LLMs, such as ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini is akin to “boiling the ocean to make yourself a cup of coffee.” The main issue, he said, is the availabil- ity of sufficient computing power at the tactical level. Instead of relying on LLMs, Google built a “knowledge graph” that mapped what Riley called “com- monly accepted truths.” Comparing information in the knowledge graph to the search engine results that us- ers found most useful enabled Google to fine-tune its search algorithm to deliver useful answers that “conform Subject-matter experts discuss the role of artificial intelligence in Army systems during an AUSA Hot Topic forum focused on cyber warfare and information advantage. (AUSA PHOTO) Medal of Honor From Page 1 Andrews and his fellow raiders were slowed by oncoming trains as they navigated the single-track rail- way. “They kept going for nearly sev- en hours,” Biden said. After 87 miles and running low on fuel, the Union team abandoned its effort just 18 miles shy of Chattanoo- ga and fled into the countryside. “But one by one, Confederate soldiers, supporters and their bloodhounds rounded them up,” Biden said. Held in a tiny, underground room, chained and starved, the raiders “remained unbowed and unbroken,” he said. Andrews and seven soldiers, in- cluding Shadrach and Wilson, were tried and convicted as spies. Andrews was executed on June 7, 1862, while the seven soldiers were executed by hanging on June 18,1862. Historical documents show that just before Wilson was put to death, he addressed the crowd and said he felt no hostility toward them and did not regret dying for his country be- cause he knew the people would soon see the Union flag flying over them once again, according to the Army. Chandler said she got chills when she read about what Wilson said. “It brought everything home, and you get so much more respect and appre- ciation for what they did and what they were fighting for,” she said. All the other soldiers who partici- pated in the Great Locomotive Chase received the Medal of Honor during or shortly after the war, said Brad Quinlin, a historian and author who helped submit the Medal of Honor recommendation packet for Shadrach and Wilson. This included Pvt. Jacob Parrott, who has the distinction of being the first soldier ever to receive the Medal of Honor. Parrott was highlighted in 2021 as part of the Association of the U.S. Army’s graphic novel series on recipients of the nation’s highest valor award. One soldier turned down the medal because he felt he didn’t deserve it. Shadrach and Wilson, however, were overlooked. “There was nothing anywhere in my research that said these two men did not do what these [other] men had done,” Quinlin said. “Their bravery, their dedication to the republic, was exactly the same.” with generally accepted truth,” Ri- ley said. Doing this required serious computing power but not the use of LLMs, he said. Building an Army-centered knowl- edge graph would require signifi- cantly less computing power than trying to build an Army-specific LLM, Riley said. Young Bang, the Army’s principal deputy assistant secretary for acqui- sition, logistics and technology and the panel’s moderator, asked how the Army could avoid allowing foreign malign influence to overwhelm that knowledge graph and artificially shift the window of accepted truths. Riley emphasized the importance of human oversight. Google has “hu- mans in the loop,” he said, who are watching trends and those potential shifts in what is acceptable to soci- ety. “We cannot abdicate human rea- soning to the machines,” he said.www.ausa.org4 AUSA Extra | July 11, 2024 Gen. Bob Brown, USA Ret. President and CEO, AUSA Lt. Gen. Leslie Smith, USA Ret. Vice President, Leadership and Education, AUSA Luc Dunn Editor Desiree Hurlocker Advertising Manager Advertising Information Contact: Fox Associates Inc. 116 W. Kinzie St. • Chicago, IL 60654 Phone: 800-440-0231 Email: adinfo.rmy@foxrep.com ARTICLES. Articles appearing in AUSA Extra do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the officers or members of the Council of Trustees of AUSA, or its editors. Articles are expres- sions of personal opinion and should not be interpreted as reflecting the official opinion of the Department of Defense nor of any branch, command, installation or agency of the Depart- ment of Defense. The publication assumes no responsibility for any unsolicited material. Email: extra@ausa.org ADVERTISING. Neither AUSA Extra, nor its publisher, the Association of the United States Army, makes any representations, warranties or endorsements as to the truth and accuracy of the advertisements appearing herein, and no such representations, warranties or en- dorsements should be implied or inferred from the appearance of the advertisements in the publication. The advertisers are solely respon- sible for the contents of such advertisements. MEMBERSHIP RATES. Premium membership rates are $40 for two years or $75 for five years. Lifetime membership is $400 and can be paid in full or in four monthly installments. A special Premium rate of $10 for two years is open to E1–E4 and cadets only. New two-year Basic membership with select benefits is free. Learn more at www.ausa.org/join . Voice for the Army – Support For the Soldier PERK OF THE WEEK ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY Army cautions service members of online intelligence-gathering attacks F oreign adversaries are target- ing U.S. Army personnel on so- cial media, job sites and gam- ing chats, the deputy Army chief of staff for intelligence, G-2, warned in a message to the force. Issued in June, the All-Army Ac- tivities message, or ALARACT, warns that foreign adversaries are “increasingly” using social media and fake job offers to gain sensitive information from Army personnel and their families. On sites such as LinkedIn, Indeed, Reddit, Facebook Messenger, Discord and Line, the adversaries may begin by asking innocuous questions such as where a soldier works or their hob- bies, according to the message and a LinkedIn post from Army Counterin- telligence Command. When the soldier or family mem- ber replies, the adversaries use the responses to progressively ask for more sensitive information or offer “disproportionate payment for servic- es, like $1,000 for a two-page white paper or all-expenses paid travel to places such as China, Hong Kong or Macau,” the post from Army Coun- terintelligence Command says. An All-Army Activities message warns that foreign adversaries are using social media and fake job offers to gain sensitive information from Army personnel. (U.S. ARMY PHOTO) AUSA members save on MetLife pet insurance. Eligible members also can combine their savings with a military dis- count. Create the plan that works best for you with easy enrollment, hassle-free claims and a short wait period for accident and illness cover- age at www.ausa.org/pet. “We have the most capable and well-trained Army in the world,” Lt. Gen. Anthony Hale, the Army G-2, said in a previous message to the Army. “The People’s Liberation Army and others want to exploit your skills to improve their capabilities.” According to the ALARACT and Army Counterintelligence Com- mand, all Army personnel must report offers for secondary employ- ment or invitations to contribute to academic projects. They also must report frequent or regular contact with foreign people or business connections; financial assistance received from a foreign government, person or organization; and all threat-related incident as outlined in Army Regulation 381-12: Threat Awareness and Reporting Program. Affected soldiers, civilian employ- ees or family members should report incidents to Army counterintelli- gence personnel, security managers or commanders. They also can use the iSalute web- site here or call 1-800-CALLSPY (1- 800-225-5779). The ALARACT is available here.www.ausa.org ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY July 11, 2024 | AUSA Extra 5 T he National Association of the 10th Mountain Division ex- ists to preserve the division’s legacy for future generations and en- hance the lives of currently serving soldiers and their families. Originally activated as the 10th Light Division (Alpine) in 1943, the division was redesignated the 10th Mountain Division in 1944 and fought in the mountains of Italy in some of the roughest terrain in World War II. It is the only unit of its size in the U.S. military to receive intense specialized training for fighting in mountainous and arctic conditions, according to the Army. The association supports soldiers, veterans and families of the division through its scholarship program, which provides up to $5,000 to full- time undergraduate and/or technical school students. “Since 2004, the as- sociation has awarded 89 total schol- arships valued at nearly $445,000 to association members and their im- mediate families,” the organization’s website says. In addition, the association pub- lishes the Blizzard digital newspa- per, provides support to wounded warriors and sponsors 10th Moun- tain Division monuments and me- morials. In 2007, association leaders started a Memorial Brick Program to help raise funds for the 10th Moun- tain Division Scholarship Fund by selling custom engraved bricks that line the Memorial Park walkway at the division’s home of Fort Drum, New York. “We must succeed in our efforts. We owe it to all the soldiers who have worn and will wear the red, white and blue patch of the 10th Mountain Division,” the association’s website says. For more information, please visit https://10thmtndivassoc.org/. If your association is interested in partnering with AUSA, contact Su- san Rubel at srubel@ausa.org. Association Partnership with AUSA is an opportunity for like-minded military service organizations to join AUSA in support of the Total Army—soldiers, DoD civilians and their families. 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(U.S. ARMY PHOTO) T he Association of the U.S. Army’s NCO and Soldier Pro- grams directorate had a busy month in June, starting with a trip to San Antonio, also known to many locals as “Military City, USA.” In San Antonio, we had the unique opportunity to speak at the Army’s annual Installation Management Command Garrison Command Team Conference and educate garri- son commanders and command ser- geants major about all AUSA has to offer through its 122 chapters around the globe. Later in the month, we landed in Garmisch, Germany, where we were invited to speak at the 20th an- nual International Command Senior Enlisted Leader Conference. We then traveled to Vicenza, Italy, to conduct leader development training for sol- diers assigned to U.S. Army South- ern European Task Force, Africa, and participate in AUSA’s European region meeting. June was a great month, especially when you get to go to places like San Antonio, Garmisch and Vicenza—lo- cations at the top of many of soldiers’ lists of preferred duty stations. Even though we did important work at each of these locations, there was one other place we traveled to in June that, for me, was much more rewarding. In mid-June, we were invited by AUSA’s Fort Leonard Wood-Mid Mis- NCO & Soldier Programs souri chapter to spend some time teaching life skills to soldiers at the installation. Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Freddie Brock, the chapter presi- dent, had learned about the life skills program during one of our quarterly NCO and Soldier Programs meetings with chapter officers and asked us to host an event at Fort Leonard Wood. Together with the Fort Leonard Wood Better Opportunities for Single Soldiers program, the Fort Leonard Wood Auto Craft Shop, garrison lead- ership and the AUSA chapter, we put together a class to teach soldiers how to perform vehicle safety inspections and routine vehicle maintenance. Each participating soldier also learned how to change their engine oil and filter, and AUSA picked up the tab and covered all the expenses. The soldiers had an incredible time, but, more importantly, they learned a valuable life skill that will help keep their vehicles in tip top shape and save them a few extra bucks each time they need an oil change. Along with the life skills event, the AUSA chapter also conducted a senior Army leader reception and a community breakfast, where they presented awards to several of their community partners. Special thanks to the Fort Leon- ard Wood-Mid Missouri chapter, the installation’s leadership and AUSA’s community partners for all they do for our soldiers and families. Retired Sgt. Maj. of the Army Daniel Dailey is AUSA’s vice president for NCO and Soldier Programs and was the 15th sergeant major of the Army. Retired Sgt. Maj. of the Army Daniel Dailey, center, leads an AUSA-hosted life skills pro- gram for soldiers stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. (AUSA PHOTO)www.ausa.org ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY July 11, 2024 | AUSA Extra 7 Chapter leaders provide home improvement for veteran Volunteer leaders with AUSA’s Maj. Samuel Woodfill chapter in Cincinnati install alumi- num handrails at the home of Richard Walsh, a local Army veteran. (AUSA PHOTO) I n furthering the Association of the U.S. Army’s mission of con- necting soldiers with their com- munities and honoring those who have served, members of AUSA’s Maj. Samuel Woodfill chapter recently vol- unteered to build safer walkways at the home of an elderly veteran. The chapter partnered on the proj- ect with People Working Cooperative- ly, a local organization in Cincinnati that provides critical home repairs for people in need. “People Working Cooperatively ex- ists to help people in need, mostly el- derly, stay in their homes and stay safe in their homes by providing home and yard repair services for free to qualifying candidates,” said retired Command Sgt. Maj. Mike Boyd, the AUSA chapter president. The organization has two focused annual timeframes, called “repair af- fair” in the spring and “prepare af- fair” in the fall, where they request teams of volunteers. “We always step up and create a team or two to help veterans,” Boyd said. In June, chapter members gath- ered to help Army veteran Richard Walsh safely navigate the walkway to his house by installing aluminum handrails. “We dug the holes, set the posts with concrete, cut the pipes and in- stalled the handrail,” Boyd said. Retired Lt. Col. Paul Fellinger, the chapter treasurer, led the effort and organized a team of volunteers made up of his wife, Patti; Boyd and his wife, Becky, and sons Luke and Markus; and retired Col. Bob Wet- terstroem and his son Robert from one of the chapter’s Community Partners, American Verified Home Inspections. “Richard was extremely apprecia- tive and happy to know that Army veterans helped him stay safe in his home,” Boyd said. Maj. Samuel Woodfill Community Partner Challenge The following chapters are the June winners of AUSA’s Community Partner Challenge in their award categories. Each winner receives $500 and 5 points toward Best Chapter in their group. • Redstone-Huntsville – Award Group 1 • Greater Augusta-Fort Eisenhower – Award Group 2 • Northern New York-Fort Drum – Award Group 3 • Rock Island Arsenal – Award Group 4 • Stuttgart – Award Group 5 Retired Command Sgt. Maj. Mike Boyd, left, president of AUSA’s Maj. Samuel Woodfill chapter in Cincinnati, helps install alumi- num handrails at the home of local Army veteran Richard Walsh. (AUSA PHOTO)Next >