ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

The U.S. Army Reserve is shifting planning and training priorities from fairly predictable, security-related deployments to short-notice, “full-spectrum” warfighting contingencies, said Lt. Gen. Charles D. Luckey, chief of the Army Reserve and commanding general of the U.S. Army Reserve Command.

“We’re focusing primarily on making sure we are building a capability of combat readiness and lethality” to enable the Army Reserve “to be a full-up player for the force,” Luckey said Dec. 12 during a breakfast meeting of the Defense Writers Group in Washington, D.C.

The Association of the U.S. Army has signed a statement of support for employment rights of National Guard and Reserve soldiers and in doing so challenged its chapters as well as corporate and sustaining members to also sign statements supporting reserve components.

Retired Army Gen. Carter F. Ham, AUSA president and CEO, signed the document on behalf of the association in a brief ceremony with Paul E. Mock, who heads the Defense Department’s Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) program. The ceremony held was held in AUSA’s Conference and Event Center in Arlington, Va.

The first military woman to ever be crowned Miss USA is using her new platform to raise awareness of post-traumatic stress disorder among service members.

Army Reserve 1st Lt. Deshauna Barber, 26, said PTSD is too often “a silent mental battle” that many troops try to wage on their own. Service members are “taught to be strong, to push through those mental and emotional battles,” said Barber, logistics commander for the 988th Quartermaster Detachment, a petroleum testing unit at Fort Meade, Md.

Soldiers of the Oklahoma Army National Guard’s 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team are featured in a new film about their 2011 Afghanistan deployment. It is titled “Citizen Soldier.”

More than 3,200 soldiers from the Norman-based unit were part of a deployment to Afghanistan’s Paktia Province that saw 14 soldiers killed in sometimes intense fighting and from frequent IED attacks.

The film footage is real and sometimes graphic in an on-the-ground view of war, including battle scenes and IED attacks. Language is sometimes graphic, as you’d expect from soldiers in combat.

Army Gen. Frank J. Grass stepped down as chief of the National Guard Bureau during a ceremony at the Pentagon on Aug. 3. Defense Secretary Ash Carter commended Grass for “tirelessly” supporting the Guard and all who serve in it over his 47-year career.

Grass, 65, who led the National Guard Bureau since September 2012, was succeeded by Air Force Gen. Joseph L. Lengyel, who had been the bureau’s vice chief. Grass is due to retire shortly.

To make the fewer than 30,000 soldiers assigned to Europe look more like 300,000, U.S. Army Europe needs the Army National Guard and Army Reserve to train in the theater on a regular basis, the command’s top Guard leader says.

To that end, Army commanders in Europe are creating every possible training opportunity for Guard and Reserve troops, said Maj. Gen. John M. Gronski, who became U.S. Army Europe’s deputy commanding general for the Army National Guard on May 1.

The Army Reserve is making great strides in expanding public and private industry partnerships to both enhance the quality of life in communities and directly support its own readiness, the chief of the Army Reserve says. Because of budget constraints and dwindling resources, generating readiness through a government-only approach is “probably not a good plan,” Lt. Gen. Jeffrey W. Talley said at an April 21 breakfast sponsored by the Association of the U.S. Army’s Institute of Land Warfare. “I need to recognize that my stakeholders are in the private sector,” Talley said.

Army Reserve engagement teams and cells have had a “phenomenal” effect on enhancing support to the Total Army and its combatant commands, the outgoing chief of the Army Reserve says. Putting those teams and cells into motion is one of the most satisfying achievements of his four-year tenure as chief of the Army Reserve, which will end June 1, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey W. Talley said at a recent breakfast sponsored by the Association of the U.S. Army’s Institute of Land Warfare.