ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

Retired Sgt. Maj. of the Army Glen Morrell, a life member of the Association of the U.S. Army who served as the seventh sergeant major of the Army from 1983–1987, died Oct. 26. He was 87.

Born May 26, 1936, in Wick, West Virginia, Morrell enlisted in the Army in 1953. He decided to leave the Army after his first enlistment but reenlisted in 1958. “I found out that I really liked the Army after I got out,” Morrell said in a 1994 interview with the Army’s Center of Military History.

A Leader Solarium organized by the Association of the U.S. Army concluded Oct. 11 with the opportunity for about 160 mid-grade NCOs and officers to pitch ideas to senior Army leaders about solving some of the service’s big challenges.

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George and Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Weimer listened to ideas on fixing a troubled soldier pay system, expanding cold-weather training and straightening out a complicated batch of unit rosters that don’t always agree on how many soldiers are in a unit.

NCOs drive change across the Army, and they will have a critical role as the service renews its focus on standards and discipline, Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Weimer said.

“We’re going to get after standards and discipline,” Weimer said Oct. 11 at the Association of the U.S. Army’s 2023 Annual Meeting and Exposition. “I can’t go anywhere in the Army and not have a conversation about standards and discipline.”

In a town hall for family members featuring the Army’s top leaders, one soldier stood and stated his problem bluntly. His wife, he said, “would rather deal with Comcast than try to find information from the Army.”

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth visibly reeled from the rebuke, but then turned to the service’s new chief of staff, Gen. Randy George. 

People and technology are both critical to the Army of the future, but the latter can never replace the former, Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Weimer told a group of mid-grade officers and NCOs.

“I do believe, and I always will, that people are our competitive advantage against all our adversaries,” Weimer said. As the force becomes more tech-driven, his concern is that soldiers will “compromise on the basics.”

The 17th sergeant major of the Army encouraged all NCOs to get advanced degrees in warfighting and master the basics of soldiering.

“I worked on my bachelor of science, finished it online, but what we’re really going to focus on is a master’s degree in warfighting, because if we’re called upon with the adversaries we have now, that’s the one that’s going to matter the most,” Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Weimer said Oct. 10 at a senior NCO forum during the Association of the U.S. Army’s 2023 Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C.

The Army is pulling excess equipment out of some of its formations to “reduce the complexity” of maintaining and accounting for gear that’s no longer needed, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George said.

In the first round of inventory reviews, he said, excess equipment belonging to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, and the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Georgia, will be removed and taken to a warehouse.

As they travel across the force, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George and Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Weimer are reinforcing the importance of an Army that’s focused on warfighting and able to respond to any contingency anywhere in the world.

“Our Army exists to fight and win our nation’s wars. That’s why we exist, that’s why we’re in this uniform,” George said. “We are a global Army. We’ve got to be ready to go anywhere on short notice.”