Brief History of the U.S Army Network Enterprise Technology Command and 9th Army Signal Command NETCOM History
The U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM) as a major Army Signal Command traces its organizational history back to 1 Feb.1945; when its predecessor unit was organized at the Pentagon as the 9423rd Technical Services Unit, (TSU) War Department Signal Center.
The War Department later re-designated the 9423rd TSU as the U.S. Army Command and Administrative Communications Agency in 1947, simplifying the title to U.S. Army Communications Agency (ACA) 10 years later.
On 1 Apr. 1962, ACA merged with the U.S. Army Signal Engineering Agency to form the U.S. Army Strategic Communications Command, (USASTRATCOM).
The Army established the Office of the Chief of Communications-Electronics on 1 Mar. 1964, and discontinued the office of the Chief Signal Officer. Simultaneously, USASTRATCOM became upgraded to major Army command status.
In 1967, the unit moved from Washington, D.C., to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, and in 1973, assumed responsibility for the communications systems at all Army posts, camps, and stations, as well as depots and arsenals. This responsibility included all telephone systems, telecommunications centers, non-tactical radio systems, television distribution systems and public-address systems.
In 1973, the Army re-designated USASTRATCOM as the U.S. Army Communications Command, (USACC) and in May of 1984, USACC was re-designated as the U.S. Army Information Systems Command (USAISC). USAISC was later re-designated as the U.S. Army Signal Command (ASC) on 16 Sep. 1996. A year later, ASC was officially inactivated; in its place, the Department of the Army (DA) activated the 9th Army Signal Command (ASC) on 16 Sep. 1997, to exercise management over signal units at echelons above corps worldwide.
Later, on 1 Oct. 2002, DA activated U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command/9th Army Signal Command (9th ASC) as a direct reporting unit assigned to the Army G6 chief information officer. NETCOM/9th ASC inherits its name from the 9th Service Company a predecessor command to the 9th ASC, originally formed on 14 Feb. 1918 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Operationally, this activation restored centralized management over Army information technology assets to NETCOM/9th ASC. In addition, NETCOM/9th ASC became the operational executive agent for Army wide network operations and security – the single point of contact for Army network development and protection.
On 30 Sep. 2011, the Army inactivated the 9th Signal Command (Army) table of organization and equipment (TOE) component of NETCOM, changing the name of the command to the U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM). Then on 6 Mar. 2014, the Department of the Army disestablished NETCOM as a CIO/G-6 direct reporting unit and reassigned it to Second Army, and the NETCOM Commander became dual-hatted as the Deputy Commander, Second Army until 11 Jul. 2016, when the Secretary of the Army inactivated Second Army and designated United States Army Cyber Command as an Army Service Component Command to United States Strategic Command, reporting directly to Headquarters, Department of the Army. Later in January of 2017, NETCOM was reassigned to our current position under USARCYBER.
Then on 1 Jun. 2020 NETCOM took responsibility for coordination, synchronization, and execution of integrated Department of Defense Information Networks (DoDIN) operations of the Army’s portion or the DoDIN-A in accordance with U.S. Army Cyber Command (ARCYBER) Operation Order (OPORD) 2018-264.
Currently, NETCOM leads global operations for the Army’s portion of the DODIN, ensuring freedom of action in cyberspace while denying the same to our adversaries, and ensuring all commanders have decision advantage in support of mission command and control within the joint multi-domain environment.