HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command (USASMDC) at Redstone Arsenal prioritizes providing trained and ready forces for space, missile defense, and high altitude missions while also preparing for future conflict.

John Foley is a Command Sergeant Major for the USASMDC, and he joined Leadership Perspectives to discuss those priorities, what a Command Sgt. Major’s duties are, the high tech capabilities of the army, and all the ways USASMDC supports the army and troops on the ground to allow them to “overmatch our adversaries.”

A command sgt. major is the second highest rank and the senior enlisted leader for any organization at battalion and above. From the lieutenant colonel level all the way up to four-star general, each one of those commanders has a senior enlisted advisor to advise them about the enlisted force.

“Really their job is really to assess the health of the force, to provide leader development, to extend influence and critically to provide advice to the commanding general with all enlisted matters and all matters in the command,” Foley said. “And then the most important thing that we really get involved with is training, manning and equipping the force across the globe.”

The bottom line of what USASMDC does is they try to provide all necessary training, equipment, and capabilities for the army to overmatch adversaries when it comes to space and missile defense missions. They let soldiers know where they are and where they need to be and when.

“We need to be able to defend against adversaries that try to deny and disrupt us, and we also have to have capabilities to deny them as well to be able to win on the battle field,” Foley said.

The capabilities the army has now however, are much different than they once were. High tech systems are a large part of what the army does now and because of that the number of professions necessary to keep it all going is large.

“Most people think that the army is all combat arms, but it’s not. There are some combat arms soldiers who do some wonderful things but, we have every job…150 professions. We have every job from infantryman to electrician to plumbers to signal, supply,” Foley said. “Everything you see across America for jobs we have them. And a lot of those professions are STEM related…Science and technology, engineering and math.”

To hear more from Command Sgt. Major Foley about these topics and others, you can watch the full Leadership Perspectives interview in the video player at the top of the page.