Dual duty: Bridging military leadership and engineering excellence at NSWCDD

Dual duty: Bridging military leadership and engineering excellence at NSWCDD

By Kristin Davis, Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division

At 19, Vijay Ahluwalia was adrift. He'd recently returned to New York after more than a decade away in his mother's native Uganda, where they'd moved after his father died.

College was off the table, for the moment. So was a dream to become a travel documentarian. He needed time and space to figure out what he wanted to do with his life.

The answer was waiting for him in Kentucky, where a cousin lived, and where a change of scenery and slower pace helped Ahluwalia find his way.

His cousin had joined the Army; he asked if Ahluwalia had ever considered a similar path.

"It had never crossed my mind," he said. But when he saw soldiers jump from a UH-60 Blackhawk at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, something stirred in him. Ahluwalia, an optimist who grew up on survival shows and sci-fi action flicks, had always been drawn to adventure and the outdoors.

He enlisted in the Army Reserve in the fall of 2012. The decision would take him to college on an academic scholarship, to Reserve Officer Training Candidate School, to the Middle East on two separate tours, to an elite position as an aide-de-camp to a two-star general. And it would bring him to Naval Warfare Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD), where today he engineers solutions for the warfighters he continues to serve alongside.

Path to Dahlgren

Ahluwalia didn't plan to go to college. But the military brought mentors, including a master sergeant named Clint Hale.

"He pushed me to become an officer," Ahluwalia recalled, and that required a college degree. In 2014, he began electrical engineering studies, doubling minoring in systems engineering and military science at Western Kentucky University on an academic scholarship.

During his final year, while working on a capstone project, a professor asked Ahluwalia if he'd ever heard of Dahlgren. He hadn't. NSCWCDD had developed the electromagnetic railgun Ahluwalia often talked about, the professor told him.

Ahluwalia had first heard about the experimental weapon while watching the 2007 movie Transformers and had been intrigued ever since. Though the Navy would later pause the program, it was still active in 2018, and Ahluwalia was soon on his way to Dahlgren to interview for a job as an engineer supporting railgun operations.

But it was another open position - that of a systems engineer in the Weapons Control and Integration Department - that drew Ahluwalia to Dahlgren.

"I just loved the [Battle Management System] BMS mission set," he said. After six years in the Army, the young reserve officer was used to fast-paced operations. "I liked the energy of the group. They were highly motivated, dedicated and not afraid to fail fast in order to fulfill capabilities."

Parallel careers

In April 2019, less than a year after becoming an officer, Ahluwalia joined the team at NSWCDD. He'd enlisted in the military to experience what it had to offer; in many ways, it was another adventure. Now, he realized it had given him much more. It gave him two fulfilling careers.

Over the next three and a half years, Ahluwalia served as an operations officer and a platoon leader for the 249^th Engineer Battalion, Delta Company, a unit within the Army Corps of Engineers that delivered commercial-grade power to military teams and federal emergency efforts. As a platoon leader in the 412^th TEC/424^th Engineer Company, he deployed to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Syria, and led construction, prime power generation and base camp design supporting the Afghanistan retrograde and refugee transition mission. He learned the value of discipline, of showing up early, of being the first one in and the last one out.

In October 2022, Ahluwalia received the prestigious assignment of aide-de-camp to the commanding general of the 412^th Theater Engineer Command - an experience that continues to impact Ahluwalia's defense and military careers.

He learned to maintain composure no matter what was going on around him, he said, to turn a seemingly impossible "no, it can't be done" into a "yes."

"Had I not been in that position or learned from key leaders and critical thinkers, I never would have thought there were alternative ways to get things done. You just have to think outside the box," Ahluwalia said.

It was exactly the kind of innovative mindset embraced at NSWCDD, where scientists and engineers are empowered to think creatively, work as a team and drive their own paths.

Service and patriotism

Today, Ahluwalia leads the Battle Management Systems project team in Dahlgren Division's Weapons Control Systems Engineering Branch, supporting Special Operations Command and Air Force Special Operations Command fixed-wing platforms. Day to day, he and his team design and manage the complex systems that control weapons on special military aircraft, ensuring the warfighter is equipped with cutting edge technology that is both safe and accurate. He's also a captain in the United States Army Reserve and company commander for the 310th Engineer Company at Fort Walker, Virginia.

That combination gives him a unique perspective, he said. "When I'm in uniform, I'm the customer. When I'm at Dahlgren, I'm building a solution."

His experience shapes the way he leads at Dahlgren-bringing operator input into engineering cycles, insisting on redundancy for reliability in combat and applying military planning principles to rapid development timelines. Likewise, his civilian work strengthens his command leadership, where he encourages decentralized decision-making, creativity and ownership.

Both roles are demanding, but for Ahluwalia they're tied to the same purpose: service and patriotism. Years of traveling across countries and continents while living in Uganda gave Ahluwalia a perspective few of his peers shared - and a deep appreciation for the country he now serves.

His military experience also gave him a deeper appreciation for America's warfighters and drives him to bridge tactical realities with innovative engineering, and to prepare the next generation of leaders with the same autonomy and resilience he has learned through his own journey.

There are challenges, to be sure. "There are times I've worked 14 days with no rest. You don't really have a schedule-your time doesn't belong to you anymore. I feel like I'm on call a lot of the time, and that does bring stress. But I know it's for a better cause. During tough times, faith is everything, as is leaning on family," he said.

At the end of the day, the work is less about balancing two careers and more about advancing a shared mission from two vantage points. In uniform, he experiences the urgency of reliable systems in combat; at Dahlgren, he transforms that urgency into engineering solutions that bring warfighters home.