“What I see today is an Army that has been at war for seven years and what I see is an Army that is very resilient,” the senior Army officer in charge of operations told 200 attendees at the September Institute of Land Warfare breakfast.
Lt. Gen. J.D. Thurman, speaking Sept. 4 in suburban Washington, added that this force is “one of the most courageous forces and [has in its ranks the] most dedicated men and women I have ever served with.”
There are 244,000 soldiers from all components either deployed or forward stationed, and they are carrying out missions not only in Afghanistan and Iraq but around the world, he said. Thurman added that the situation around the world is evolving even in an era marked by persistent conflict for resources, regional political and economic influence, ethnic and sectarian tensions.. Thurman specifically mentioned Russia’s military operations in Georgia as a case in point.
Citing the 43 major deployments the Army has made in the past 18 years, “We don’t see where the end is in sight. …I believe these wars will require deep and continuing commitment,” he said. “It is a conflict where there is no clearly defined enemy in most cases,” that often involve believers in extreme ideologies and terrorists. “I don’t believe we can take a time-out here.”
The smaller Army of today with its 10 active divisions and eight in the National Guard must be prepared to operate across a spectrum running from stability operations to general war.
To do this in part, the active force needs to grow to more than 547,000, the Army National Guard to 356,000 and the Army Reserve to 206,000, Thurman said. This would allow for longer time at home so that soldiers have the time to reset themselves and their equipment from deployments and engage in individual training, next enter a collective training phase to build readiness and then be available for deployment.
“We’ve got to get 12 to 15 months of dwell time” to change the training focus from counterinsurgency warfare as it is today to the full spectrum of operations spelled out in Field Manual 3.0, Thurman said. The Army is preparing to debut its new field training manual soon.
He added when the five brigade combat teams were deployed to Iraq in early 2007 “we took the shock out of the shock absorber.”
Thurman said that the Army’s efforts to bring itself back into balance should be complete by 2011 where the service should see active duty soldiers deployed for a year and at home for two and reserve component soldiers deployed for one year and at home for four.
The longer range force generation model would have active duty soldiers available for deployment for a year and back home for three and reserve component soldiers available for deployment for a year and back home for five, Thurman said.
He said the Army is on course to transform to 48 active duty brigade combat teams and 28 brigade combat teams and stand up 81 support brigades to sustain the force by FY 2011 and rebalance 143,000 spaces in the active and reserve components.
Strategic Resources Inc. was the breakfast sponsor.