Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta joined Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey and other U.S. and Iraq leaders in honoring eight years of service and sacrifice as they commemorated the end of the U.S. military mission in Iraq."No words, no ceremony can provide full tribute to the sacrifices that have brought this day to pass," Panetta said during a ceremony in Baghdad Dec. 15.Panetta paid tribute to the Iraqi government and military for their courage, leadership and loyalty to Iraq’s future. "Your dream of an independent and sovereign Iraq is now a reality," he said...
The Army has radically scaled down its wearable, command-and-control ensemble using a device that most civilians can’t live without – the smartphone.The move is one of the most dramatic shifts in the two-decade history of the program formerly known as Land Warrior, a smart-soldier system designed to help soldiers see through the fog of war.The new version of Nett Warrior, which should weigh no more than five pounds, features "the same capabilities that the Nett Warrior Configuration 1 had and the same capabilities that we leveraged from Land Warrior – where am I, where are my buddies, how do I...
AUSA’s Institute of Land Warfare has recently released a new publication."Military Retiree Health Care Faces Triple Whammy" (Torchbearer Issue Paper, November 2011) discusses the impact on and implications for military retirees in the context of numerous proposals to reduce health care costs.Quality of life and health care are vital to sustaining the All-Volunteer Force.The benefits earned from a lifetime of service affect not only retirees but the next generation of soldiers as well.Today’s soldiers are tomorrow’s retirees; the slow reduction in health care benefits places more of a burden on...
Implementing Special Forces tactics within the conventional forces is integral to the success of counterinsurgency efforts, according to a panel of Army leaders, both Special Forces and conventional, who spoke at an Institute of Land Warfare (ILW) Forum during the Association of the U.S. Army’s 2011 Annual Meeting and Exposition.The panel focused on how Special Forces and conventional forces collaborate in both gaining support from local villages and training indigenous forces in Afghanistan.In order to understand how these processes are performed, the panel first focused on the soft forces...
The Network Integrated Evaluation (NIE) 12.1 is the second in a series of semi-annual field exercises designed to evaluate, integrate and mature the Army’s tactical network.During the evaluation, the Army will integrate and assess network and non-network capabilities and determine their implications across Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership and Education, Personnel and Facilities (DOTMLPF).Doctrinal results from the July 2011 NIE have shown two broad network findings: First, the Army lacks soldier-level connectivity and unit mission command capabilities and, second, the...
The Army is evaluating the mission command-on-the-move capabilities that allow soldiers to communicate vertically and laterally through voice and data in a tactical operational environment.The testing and evaluation of the network components, or technologies and system capabilities, are occurring through a series of semi-annual network integration evaluation exercises, at Fort Bliss, Texas, and White Sands Missile Range, N.M.More than 3,800 soldiers from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, are operating both systems under evaluation and systems under test and employing them in...
Then acting director of the Army National Guard said that in order to retain soldiers who enlisted after 2006, the National Guard needs to keep them actively engaged."Where do we go post Afghanistan and Iraq [for those soldiers]?" Maj. Gen. Raymond Carpenter asked attendees at a special National Guard seminar at the Association of the United States Army’s Annual Meeting and Exposition Tuesday, Oct. 11.One concept being studied is expanding the state partnership programs with individual countries to brigade partnerships with regions, both programs would operate under guidance from regional...
As the Army looks forward to a lessening of 10 years of intensive combat deployments, it is working to reform and revitalize its leadership development for officers, senior enlisted and the civilian workforce, a panel of Army training and personnel officials said Wednesday, Oct. 12.That effort is set out in H.R. 2020, a human resources guidance to support Army 2020 and to "transform Army management of manpower" by the end of this decade, the panel of active, National Guard, Army Reserve and civilian leaders told a forum at the Association of the United States Army’s Annual Meeting and...
While the Army understandably has been preoccupied with operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army’s top military officer in Korea cautioned that potential threats in Northeast Asia still require continued vigilance.The Korean Peninsula poses two specific strategic challenges to U.S. interests, said Gen. James D. Thurman, who is now three months into his latest job as commander of all U.S. and United Nations forces in Korea."I, for one, believe it is essential to stay engaged in Northeast Asia," Thurman said, during an Oct. 12 related special seminar at the Association of the U.S. Army’s...
The Israeli military is testing an airburst-style weapon that resembles the technology inside the U.S. Army’s XM25 counter-defilade weapon. But unlike the stand-alone U.S. weapon, the Israeli design mounts on any rifle and works with a standard 40mm grenade launcher.The Multi Purpose Rifle System, made by Israel Military Industries Ltd., is designed to dramatically improve the accuracy and range of 40mm rifle grenades, IMI officials maintain.The system features a computer, laser rangefinder and optic that can be mounted on any rifle with Picatinny rails. Using a touchpad that mounts to a...
Commanders should put down their BlackBerry devices and get involved in the training of their soldiers, according to a forum of junior leaders.After four days of meetings at the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command-hosted "Army Profession Junior Leader Forum" at Fort Sill, Okla., about 90 junior Army leaders – including noncommissioned officers, warrant officers and junior officers – delivered to senior Army officers, Nov. 18, their opinions on issues such as trust relationships, standards and discipline, Army professional certification, leader development, and Army culture.Staff Sgt...
One of the greatest challenges for today’s Army, according to Maj. Gen. Bob Brown, commanding general, U.S. Army Maneuver Center for Excellence and Fort Benning, Ga., is to improve the efficiency of the military’s smallest unit: the squad."We wanted to know: where is the fight too fair?" Brown said. "It’s at the lowest levels that present the biggest challenge. The squad is where it is too fair a fight."The squad is also, Brown added, the level where most Army casualties occur.Although changing in composition throughout the years, the squad now has nine soldiers, including a squad leader. From...
The Army has concluded its second Network Integration Evaluation at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., moving closer to deploying an integrated battlefield network after collecting valuable soldier feedback on the latest tactical communications technologies.The three-week event, known as Network Integration Evaluation, or NIE, 12.1, represented the first time that all of the components of the Army network to be fielded in Fiscal Year 2013 were united and evaluated in a realistic operational environment.Soldiers at the lowest echelons were brought into the network, communicating through text...
The U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command hosted the Army Profession Junior Leader Forum at Fort Sill, Okla., Nov. 17.The forum is part of TRADOC's Unified Quest program, and during the four-day event, junior leaders (enlisted, officers, noncommissioned officers and warrant officers) from across the Army discussed Army Profession findings and will provide recommendations to the Army leadership.The forum serves to continue the Center for the Army Profession and Ethic, or CAPE, study of Army Profession Strengthening Initiatives.These proposed initiatives were identified in the Army Profession...
After a successful pilot program aimed at reducing the emotional stress facing soldiers and their families by embedding behavioral health providers in units at Fort Carson, Colo., the Army is expanding the program to seven additional installations in Fiscal Year 2012.The Embedding Behavioral Health, or EBH, program has had a tremendous impact on Fort Carson.Redeploying units showed significant reductions in multiple areas, including acute psychiatric admissions, spouse abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, suicide attempts, child abuse and positive drug screens.According to Maj. Christopher...