The Warrior Transition Command in Alexandria, Va., has announced the Army Team for the 2013 Warrior Games.Wounded, ill and injured soldiers and veterans trained and competed for months to be one of 50 athletes representing the Army team.Army athletes will compete against Marines Corps, Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force, Special Operations Command, and United Kingdom teams at the U.S. Olympic Training Center and U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colo.The Paralympic-style competition for wounded, ill and injured service members allows athletes to compete for gold medals in shooting, swimming...
After receiving his fourth star, Gen. John F. Campbell was sworn in as the Army’s 34th vice chief of staff by Secretary of the Army John McHugh at the Pentagon March 8.An hour earlier, Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the outgoing vice chief for the last 13 months, was presented the Distinguished Service Medal and his wife, Charlene, was given the Army Public Service Award by McHugh.The Austins are headed to Tampa, Fla., where he will command the joint U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) that oversees all military operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan.Campbell was nominated by President Barack...
The Army projects a decrease in 10,000 to 14,000 recruits across the services this fiscal year as military entrance processing stations shut down one day per week.Beginning in April, civilian military entrance processing stations, or MEPS, employees will be furloughed, said the Army’s deputy chief of staff, G-1, Lt. Gen. Howard B. Bromberg.He explained that the Army is the executive agent for MEPS, which processes entry-level personnel for all the armed forces.Bromberg and the other service chiefs testified recently at a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the impact of the continuing...
AUSA-supported legislation passesAn Association of the United States Army-supported amendment offered by Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., and Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., to restore funding for the military’s tuition assistance (TA) program was adopted by the Senate March 21st part of the spending bill that will fund the government for the remainder of the fiscal year.New enrollment in tuition assistance (TA) for service members was abruptly cancelled by the Army as part of its efforts to manage severe budget cuts mandated by Congress in the Budget Control Act of 2011.Although the House version of the...
The U.S. Army must transition from a strategic environment focused on well-funded, near-term capabilities, to one focused on fiscally-constrained, long-term capabilities, according to Gen. Robert Cone, commanding general, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).Cone, speaking at the Association of the United States Army’s Institute of Land Warfare Winter Symposium and Exposition, outlined the variety of ways in which the Army must transition for the future environment."At the end of the day, the Army will do what others cannot," Cone said. He went on to explain that if the Army loses...
The reset of equipment returning from Afghanistan may be affected by sequestration, said the commander of U.S. Army Materiel Command.The cancellation of reset would affect post-combat repair for about 1,000 vehicles, 14,000 communications devices and 17,000 weapons, Gen. Dennis Via, commander of U.S. Army Materiel Command, or AMC, told an audience Feb. 22 at the Association of the United States Army Institute of Land Warfare Winter Symposium and Exposition.Retrograde of equipment from Afghanistan is now underway, Via said.About $22 billion worth of military hardware, weapons, vehicles and...
TRICARE West Region transitions to new contractor. TRICARE beneficiaries in the West Region are now getting their coverage from a new contractor, UnitedHealthcare Military & Veterans.The change was effective on April 1.UnitedHealthcare sent welcome packets to beneficiaries in February and March with information about their enhanced services, any actions they need to take and contact information should they have any questions.These packets were also sent to TRICARE for Life (TFL) beneficiaries in the West Region to notify them of the change. However, TFL beneficiaries need to take no action...
Mark your calendar – May 1 at 12:01 EST.In the last issue of our monthly newspaper, AUSA NEWS, and in a story that recently appeared on the AUSA website under "Headline News," was a very important article from the Army Ten-Miler staff at the U.S. Army Military District of Washington that I hope you didn’t miss.But, in case you did, it’s worth repeating here.This year, because of the rush to register for this great annual Army athletic event that reached its cap of 30,000 runners in 2012 and was closed in a matter of hours, race officials have again this year announced registration procedure...
The Army has made available to soldiers a new online resource to complement the Ready and Resilient Campaign that launched in March.The campaign’s website is available at www.army.mil/readyandresilient, and is designed as a "one-stop shop" for resources related to soldier resilience and readiness.The new site includes sections for medical readiness, personal readiness, and soldier transition issues.On the front page of the site is a list of hotlines for soldiers to call for when "something bad happens," Col. John Sims, Office of the Chief of Public Affairs, said. Such an event could include a...
It’s a problem with which we’re all too familiar: More than 500,000 veterans have received disability ratings from the VA over the last dozen years, many severe enough to be life altering.According to a study by Rand Corporation, as many as one out of every three of the 2.4 million troops that have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan will be returning home with Post-Traumatic Stress or Traumatic Brain Injury, the war’s "signature" injuries.These disabilities often demand a long and difficult period of recovery and adjustment – but they need not be a barrier to civilian employment, income...
It takes a lot of work to keep a military family functioning at high speed.With the continual relocation, keeping kids busy, or even deployments, being a military spouse is a full time job in itself. But they’re up to the challenge.Considering the mobility of the military lifestyle, many spouses have a difficult time maintaining employment from duty station to duty station.More than 25 percent of military spouses are currently without a job and actively pursuing work.But, what do you do when you move constantly and can’t find a job? Create your own!Spouse-run businesses are popping up at a...
In this time of fiscal uncertainty it seems to me that the federal civilian workforce is being demonized as a too-highly paid, unnecessarily large work force, and is seen by many as a convenient cost containment target whose pay has been frozen by Congress for the last several years and who now face furlough for up to 14 days.That was a long sentence that can be responded to with one word – baloney!The federal workforce is made up of dedicated civil servants who have demonstrated their loyalty to this nation over and over.My experience – over 35 years of active duty – was with Department of...
Spending bill clears Congress. Government shutdown averted. Congress cleared a spending package that not only averted a government shutdown, it also gave the Defense Department some fiscal breathing room.What was not averted was the sequester.It will remove an equal amount from every non-exempt program.The bill funds most of the government through a continuation of the current continuing resolution, but also included full defense and military construction-VA bills that have adjusted spending levels for programs in order to protect high-priority programs and better manage the sequester.Among...
The U.S. Army Cadet Command announced recently the eight winners of the MacArthur Awards for the school year 2011-2012.The award recognizes the eight schools, selected from among the 273 senior Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) units nationwide, as the top programs in the country.The awards, presented by Cadet Command and the Gen. Douglas MacArthur Foundation, recognize the ideals of "duty, honor and country" as advocated by MacArthur.The award is based the achievement of the school’s commissioning mission, its cadets’ performance and standing on the command’s National Order of...
Norwich University officials recently announced that Lt. Col. Thomas P. McKenna, USA, Ret., of Stowe, Vt., is the 2013 William E. Colby Award winner for his book "Kontum: The Battle to Save South Vietnam," an Association of the United States Army book published by The University Press of Kentucky.McKenna served as a military adviser to the South Vietnamese Army, and has published articles on military history in "Vietnam," "Military Officer," and "Military Heritage" magazines.During his 22 years of service, McKenna served more than 12 years overseas in Germany, Italy, Korea and Vietnam.His...