MG Daniel Hughes, Army Program Executive Officer for Command, Control and Communications – Tactical, has been reassigned and will head from Aberdeen Proving Ground to Afghanistan.
Hughes will serve as deputy commanding general for support at the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A), Operation Freedom's Sentinel, Afghanistan. The assignment was announced in a May 29 release from the Army.
Hughes' focus at PEO C3T, based in Maryland, has been on simplifying the Army network and streamlining the ways soldiers get access to technology in the field. Among Hughes' chief priorities at C3T has been fielding technology, especially to improve situational awareness, to soldiers on the battlefield. One of the most high-profile of those priorities has been pushing the WIN-T program into full-rate production; the system underwent final rounds of testing at the most recent Network Integration Evaluation and is now awaiting approval for full-rate production.
Hughes will be relieving MG Kirk Vollmecke as deputy commanding general at the Combined Security Transition Command, a post that before Vollmecke was held by MG Harold Greene. Greene was killed in action in an attack by Afghan soldiers while he was visiting a training facility in Kabul in August 2014. Greene, who also formerly headed up the Army's program executive office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors (IEW&S), was the highest-ranking military member to be killed on foreign soil since the Vietnam War.
Part of NATO, CSTC-A is the organization responsible for training, advising and assisting Afghan counterparts as part of Resolute Support, the follow-on mission to the International Security Assistance Force mission that concluded at the end of 2014, according to NATO. The deputy commanding general role includes significant acquisition work, a key reason that Hughes -- and Vollmecke and Greene before him -- was selected for the position. All three officers in their careers oversaw key portfolios and the procurement processes associated with them.
The Army has not yet named a successor for Hughes, and PEO C3T leadership will transition in the coming weeks, an Army source said.
Hughes has headed up PEO C3T since September 2013, and received his second star on Sept. 2, 2014.
