If the total Army is to remain combat ready after the drawdown in Iraq, it must get the dwell time between deployments to at least twice the time gone, it must retain the current force structure, must retain access to the Army Reserve and National Guard and it must be well funded, Lt. Gen. Daniel P. Bolger, Army deputy chief of staff for operations, plans and programs, said Oct. 25.The Army also must resume training for full-spectrum combat, after nine years of mainly counter-insurgency operations and may want to review its modular structure based on brigade combat teams, Bolger told an Association of the United States Army’s Institute of Land Warfare Contemporary Military Forum on readiness held during the AUSA Annual Meeting and Exposition.Bolger noted, "We have platoon sergeants who’ve never known any other world than counterinsurgency," and urged a return to training exercises in forcible entry and in how to mass ground and air fires.A key to restoring a broader range of capabilities is expanding the time between deployments, or the ratio of "dwell to BOG" (boots on the ground), Bolger and the other officers on the readiness panel said. Also on the panel, Maj. Gen. Mark A. Graham, deputy chief of staff G-3/5/7 at Forces Command, touted the advantages of the Army Force Generation (ARFORGEN) programs that provide trained and ready forces for the regional combatant commanders.But, Graham also said as the Army gets longer dwell times, units must "get back to basics" and learn to operate in something other than counter-insurgency and relearn to support themselves without the army of contractors they have relied on in Iraq and Afghanistan.Brig. Gen. Jon J. Miller, deputy commanding general, Army Reserve Command, and Brig. Gen. Timothy J. Kadavy, deputy director Army National Guard, explained how the ARFORGEN process and the nine years of combat have affected their units.All the speakers said the Army could not function today without its reserve component soldiers.Bolger said the Army today was much different than what it was before the 9/11 attacks, due to three strategic decisions. One of those was the decision to mobilize the guard and reserve at the start.When the nation calls up the National Guard and reserve, he said, it brings the population to support the services. He noted that while the two wars are not popular with the public, the people support the service members, unlike what happened in Vietnam when the reserve component was not used.Another strategic decision was to deploy forces as units, rather than the individual replacement used in Vietnam. Although that was fine at the beginning when only a few units were deployed, it became difficult with the larger deployments for Iraq. That required a heavy use of contractors, he said.The third decision, which Bolger called a "non-choice," was to fight the two wars with a fixed force structure. Although the Army did get an increase in end strength later – as did the Marine Corps, which shared the burden of the ground wars – the relatively small growth led to a "dwell to BOG" ration of 1:1, meaning soldiers were home a year between year-long deployments.That ratio is not sustainable, Bolger said, pointing to the increases in alcohol and drug abuse and other problems as results.The officers said the Army expects to get to a 1:2 ratio by next year for the active forces and hoped to get to 1:3 for the active Army and 1:5 for the National Guard and Army Reserve by 2015.