In a White House ceremony in March, President Bush posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor to MSgt. Woodrow (Woody) Wilson Keeble, the first full-blooded Sioux Indian so honored. (See page 96 for photographs.) The award was bestowed almost 60 years after MSgt. Keeble’s actions in 1951, when he single-handedly took out three machine-gun nests and killed 16 enemy soldiers before overtaking a strategic hill near Sangsan-ni, Korea. Russell Hawkins, MSgt. Keeble’s stepson, accepted the award on behalf of his stepfather, who died in 1982.

MSgt. Keeble joined the 164th Infantry Regiment, North Dakota National Guard, in 1942 and earned the first of four Purple Hearts and his first Bronze Star for actions on Guadalcanal during World War II. He also fought in the battles of Bougainville, Leyte, Cebu and Mindanao. He volunteered for service in Korea, noting, “Somebody has to teach these young kids how to fight.”

Keeble was a 34-year-old master sergeant serving with the 19th Infantry Regiment, 24th Infantry Division, when it was called to take a series of mountains that protected an enemy supply town in central Korea. The operation was known as the “Big Push” and was the last major United Nations offensive of the Korean War. Communist forces had pinned down the U.S. soldiers. Wounded himself, MSgt. Keeble charged the hill alone. He took out two of the bunkers with grenades, was stunned by a concussion grenade and after regaining consciousness shot the occupants of the third pillbox.

MSgt. Keeble’s men recommended him for the Medal of Honor twice; the paperwork was lost both times. In 1952, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross; the citation notes his “extraordinary heroism and completely selfless devotion to duty.” His family persevered to obtain recognition for MSgt. Keeble; 17 members of his family and dozens of Sioux, many of them veterans in uniform, attended the belated Medal of Honor presentation ceremony.


ARMY STRETCHED BUT STILL STRONG
Secretary of the Army Pete Geren assured members of the Senate Armed Services Committee in late February that the U.S. Army, despite years of war, “is the best led, best equipped and best trained Army we’ve ever put in the field.” Including those serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, there are 250,000 soldiers deployed to 80 countries, Secretary Geren told the committee. He and Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. described how the nearly $141 billion allocated to the Army in the fiscal year (FY) 2009 National Defense Authorization Budget would be spent.

Secretary Geren noted the heavy contributions of the Army National Guard and Army Reserve to the war effort and pointed out that the FY 2009 budget continues an established pattern of investment for the reserve components. “We are one Army,” he said. “The active component cannot go to war without the reserve component.” Gen. Casey echoed Secretary Geren’s confidence in the Army, telling the committee that the Army “remains a hugely resilient, professional and combat-seasoned force.” He also expressed his concern about the challenges of restoring balance to the Army and the strain imposed on it by long and repeated deployments.
“People are not designed to be exposed to the horrors of combat repeatedly,” Gen. Casey told reporters earlier, “and it wears on them. There’s no question about that.”

Gen. Casey told reporters that his primary concern is the loss of captains because the Army invests about 10 years to get them to that level of leadership. “If they leave,” he said, “you lose a decade.”

For a 90-day period last fall, the Army offered eligible captains attractive reenlistment incentives, among them a cash bonus of up to $35,000, graduate school financial assistance, a branch or functional area transfer, or choice of duty station. Still, reenlistment numbers fell short of Army’s goal to retain 14,000 captains by about 1,300 officers.

In addition, although the Army has met its recruiting goals, Gen. Casey noted that it hasn’t met its target for recruits with high school diplomas. The Pentagon standard is 90 percent. “Right now, it’s … important for us to grow the force rapidly,” he said. The active duty Army is now growing from 518,000 to 547,000.

Gen. Casey has long maintained that the Army must return to 12-month deployments, that deploying for 15 months with only 12 months at home before another tour does not allow time for training and reset. This summer, he said, he thinks the Army can go back to 12-month deployments. With the return by the end of July of the remaining four brigades deployed when President Bush ordered a buildup of forces in Iraq early last year, the Army will have 15 combat brigades in battle. Gen. Casey said the Army, though stressed, is able to meet its commitments and can maintain 15 brigades for at least a couple of months if commanders decide to pause—delaying any further drawdown while they evaluate the situation in Iraq. “A month or two wouldn’t have a significant impact on what we’re talking about doing,” he said.

Gen. Casey explained that his eventual aim is to shorten war deployments to nine months and increase time at home to 18 months. One key to achieving that goal, he said, is the Army having only 10 brigades—roughly 35,000 troops—deployed to war. For now, however, Gen. Casey told the committee, the Army is “consumed by the current fight and unable to do the things that we know we need to do to properly sustain our all-volunteer force …”


GAO QUESTIONS FCS
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has expressed concerns about Future Combat Systems (FCS) capabilities, saying that the Army underestimated the task. Specifically, GAO questions whether the software will perform as it was intended and cautions that it may not be developed in time to keep pace with the weapons and combat vehicles it is designed to link.

FCS, the most thorough modernization of the Army since World War II, depends on one of the largest software programs in DoD history. That program is intended to allow soldiers to communicate through a wireless network in near-real time by linking weapons through the software system. About 14 vehicles—drones, tanks and other ground vehicles—are linked, and the soldier on the ground is linked through a transmitter to the commander during an operation.

Cost is another factor of the program that has drawn criticism. The Army contends that FCS, estimated to cost roughly $160 billion, is affordable and at no point represents more than one-twelfth of the overall Army budget. Deputy Chief of Staff, G-8, Lt. Gen. Stephen M. Speakes told an audience at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Winter Symposium in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., that “the issue of affordability ought to be taken off the table. … Development of that program is non-negotiable.” The Army has requested $3.6 billion for FCS in fiscal year (FY) 2009, and Congress is scrutinizing the program with an eye to potential cuts. In FY 2008, it shaved $228 million from the program; in 2007, $326 million.

In its annual oversight hearing in late February, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee expressed skepticism about the affordability of the program, and Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) of the House Committee on Appropriations’ Subcommittee on Defense suggested granting more funds to complete it in four to five years while eliminating some of its component systems.