ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

Reinforcing the fundamentals of professional soldiering has emerged as a drumbeat among Army leaders as they prepare the force for future combat.

The focus on strengthening the Army profession is less a change than it is an effort to instill anew the foundational tenets of cohesive teams—teams that are built on trust and discipline and rely on competence, character and standards.

In a history-making address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, Vice President Kamala Harris congratulated the Army’s newest officers while warning that they face an “increasingly unsettled world.”

The Association of the U.S. Army is releasing two new podcasts in November, following a major relaunch of its “Army Matters” series.

First up in November is a podcast featuring Raymond James Raymond, author of Elite Souls: Portraits of Valor in Iraq and Afghanistan.

U.S. Army Europe and Africa welcomed a new commanding general June 28, as Gen. Darryl Williams assumed command from Gen. Christopher Cavoli.

Williams, who received his fourth star for the new assignment, comes to Europe after serving as the 60th superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, since July 2018.

More than a century after his death, Charles Young, the first African American colonel in the U.S. Army, was posthumously promoted to brigadier general.

The long overdue recognition took place April 29 at an event hosted by Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, where Young began his Army career and became the third African American to graduate from the academy in 1889. 

The Army’s most valuable asset is not weaponry or any material goods, but character, retired Gen. David Perkins said at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Annual Meeting and Exposition.

A new monument honoring the legacy of West Point’s Buffalo Soldiers has been dedicated on the grounds of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.

During a ceremony on Sept. 10, the 10-foot bronze statue of a trooper mounted on horseback was dedicated on the south end of Buffalo Soldier Field, replacing a smaller memorial that had been in place since 1973. 

The 2021 graduating class of the U.S. Military Academy is entering a “changing country and a changing world,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said May 22 in his first commencement address at the institution where he received his commission in 1975. 

Austin, the first Black person to serve as U.S. defense secretary, said the cadets are entering the Army as new officers at a time when the “old ways” of doing business are changing, in the aftermath of a pandemic, with a politically divided country and threats from big and rising global competitors.