The Army National Guard and Army Reserve are critical to the Army’s success, but this upcoming year may be an opportunity for leaders to reassess what citizen-soldiers are called upon to do, a senior Army leader said.
The Army has resumed brigade-level collective training following a three-month pause to emplace safety measures aimed at preventing the spread of the COVID-19 virus among soldiers, observer-controllers and civilian role players.
All major training was halted in mid-March after DoD issued orders restricting travel for troops, employees and family members. The Army began putting measures in place so that units could resume home station training safely in smaller numbers, but major training exercises hadn’t resumed until now.
The Army’s largest command has a new leader, and for the first time in history it is a woman.
Lt. Gen. Laura J. Richardson, an aviator once featured on the cover of Time magazine in a story about mothers going to war, became U.S. Army Forces Command acting commanding general on Oct. 16. She had been deputy commanding general but was tapped to fill the top job when Gen. Robert B. Abrams relinquished command to take a new post heading U.S. Forces Korea in early November.
