ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

Like it or not, millennials—sometimes stereotypically considered entitled, lazy and overly emotional—are the future of our military, and that may be a good thing.

It is time to understand them. Considering the average age of enlisted members was 27 and the average age of officers was 34½ as of  2015, millennials are moving into junior leadership positions where they are shaping the Army’s values, ethics and organizational functions.

Research into millennial generation expectations reveals traits, desires, work ethic and beliefs that are desirable in military organizations—and some that aren’t.

La...

The George W. Bush administration was wrong with its 2003 “Mission Accomplished” pronouncement regarding Iraq. The defeat of Saddam Hussein’s army, in fact, did not accomplish the mission. Rather, it changed the character of the war. Eight years later, President Barack Obama was wrong with his 2012 “the Iraq war is over” speech. Our return to Iraq proved it. And now, the Trump administration’s announcement that the Islamic State group is defeated, a claim that no empirically based analysis or intelligence agency can support, makes the U.S. 0-for-3 in correct strategic assessments.

What gives in...

Hunched over a long table strewn with plates of chicken Kiev, tucked away in an underground restaurant beneath Kiev, Ukraine’s Maidan Square, Olena Bilenka, a partisan Ukrainian nationalist with tattoos and a strong physique, looked at us intently. When one of our cadets, a dual Russian-American, offered to interpret, Bilenka barked, “Nyet!” Refusing to speak the language of the occupier, she would only speak through a Ukrainian interpreter.

Bilenka is one of thousands of proud Ukrainians who quit their day jobs to take up arms fighting separatists in the Donbas, the conflict zone in Ukraine’s...

Hunched over a long table strewn with plates of chicken Kiev, tucked away in an underground restaurant beneath Kiev, Ukraine’s Maidan Square, Olena Bilenka, a partisan Ukrainian nationalist with tattoos and a strong physique, looked at us intently. When one of our cadets, a dual Russian-American, offered to interpret, Bilenka barked, “Nyet!” Refusing to speak the language of the occupier, she would only speak through a Ukrainian interpreter.

Bilenka is one of thousands of proud Ukrainians who quit their day jobs to take up arms fighting separatists in the Donbas, the conflict zone in Ukraine’s...

What if the Army combined its current talent management approach, the Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army, with temperament theory and the NFL draft? It sounds crazy, but it’s worth discussing.

We can use the current system along with innovative ideas to combat negative perceptions regarding assignment selection and talent management. We could identify a more feasible solution for identifying talent best suited to fill vacancies throughout the Army.

In addition to the Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army, known as IPPS-A, we could leverage evaluation reports and the promotion process...

What if the Army combined its current talent management approach, the Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army, with temperament theory and the NFL draft? It sounds crazy, but it’s worth discussing.

We can use the current system along with innovative ideas to combat negative perceptions regarding assignment selection and talent management. We could identify a more feasible solution for identifying talent best suited to fill vacancies throughout the Army.

In addition to the Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army, known as IPPS-A, we could leverage evaluation reports and the promotion process...

During the 2018 Association of the U.S. Army Annual Meeting and Exposition, a town hall with Army Secretary Mark T. Esper, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley and Sgt. Maj. of the Army Daniel A. Dailey was held for Army family members and soldiers. Among the many issues brought up were challenges with military privatized housing, which included chipping lead paint and mold.

Lauren Hope, an Army spouse living in privatized housing, shared her personal story along with health issues she suspected were a result of mold spore exposure.

Paying $800 in out-of-pocket expenses for mold testing, she...

The Association of the U. S. Army’s Greater Kansas City Chapter recently recognized humanitarian, actor and philanthropist Gary Sinise’s almost 40 years of exceptional support to veterans, service members and families with the inaugural presentation of the Colonel Roger H.C. Donlon Patriot Award.

The award honors Donlon as both the first U.S. Army Special Forces soldier to receive the Medal of Honor and its first recipient in the Vietnam conflict.

Donlon personally presented the award to Sinise before an audience of more than 370 veterans, service members and members of the Kansas City community...

Integrated air and missile defense will be critical in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly as tensions grow with China, Russia and North Korea, the commander of U.S. Army Pacific said at a Hot Topic forum hosted by the Association of the U.S. Army’s Institute of Land Warfare.

China and Russia are currently in competition with the U.S., rather than conflict, according to the National Defense Strategy. However, it is a “hyper-competition,” said Gen. Robert B. Brown.

“Because of that hyper-competition, you have to have an incredible presence and posture,” he said.

The U.S. doesn’t want conflict...

Now that the Defense Department has released its budget, the Army’s first posture hearing will be with the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 26.

However, other hearings on topics such as readiness, quality of life and threats to national security have been ongoing since the new 116th Congress took office.

AUSA will provide updates on the Army’s budget request as we learn the details and gain useful insights from Armed Services and Appropriations hearings, budget reviews and mark-ups.

In his remarks at AUSA’s Institute of Land Warfare breakfast forum on Feb. 26, Undersecretary of the Army...

Plotting a Course Through a Global Fight

Atlas of World War II: History’s Greatest Conflict Revealed Through Rare Wartime Maps and New Cartography. Neil Kagan and Stephen G. Hyslop. National Geographic. 256 pages. $45

By Capt. Jonathan D. Bratten

In time for the 75th anniversary of D-Day, National Geographic has released the Atlas of World War II. Now, one might think there are already plenty of resources such as this in the world of books. And further, that maybe the digital age has rendered things like atlases obsolete. But the Atlas of World War II manages to be relevant by relying on stunning...

The Association of the U.S. Army is supporting the Honoring American Veterans in Extreme Need (HAVEN) Act (S. 679) to protect the economic security and well-being of veterans and their families who rely on disability benefits and may be experiencing financial hardship.

The HAVEN Act, recently introduced by Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, would remove unequal treatment among various disability benefits by excluding VA and DoD disability payments made to veterans or their dependent survivors from the monthly income calculation used for bankruptcy means tests.

“The...

Retired Gen. Carter F. Ham, AUSA president and CEO, and retired Sgt. Maj. of the Army Ken Preston, AUSA vice president for NCO and Soldier Programs, recently visited AUSA’s Sunshine Chapter in Orlando, Fla.

Ham was the guest speaker at the chapter’s general membership meeting, where he and Preston were welcomed by the chapter president, retired 1st Sgt. Daila Espeut-Jones.

After the meeting, the group visited the Army’s Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation (PEO STRI), where they received an overview from Brig. Gen. Michael Sloane.

PEO STRI executes a multi-billion...

Operation Deploy Your Dress, the Marne Spouses Club and the Association of the U.S. Army’s Marne Chapter partnered March 7 to open a sixth boutique at Fort Stewart, Ga.

More than 30 dresses and accessories were given away to DoD ID card holders during the grand opening event.

Operation Deploy Your Dress (ODYD), began at Fort Bliss, Texas, in late 2015, when founders Renee Chapman, Ronya Rendon, Yvonne Coombes, Liz McKenrick and Melissa Riely decided to organize a dress swap among their units’ spouses, as a way to defray the costs associated with purchasing formal wear for holiday balls.

It wasn’t...

Abolitionist, dress reformer and suffragette, Mary Edwards Walker first strode onto a battlefield with her surgeon’s bag in 1862. She was a civilian volunteer who had been denied official Union Army enlistment again and again. But three years later, she became the only woman ever awarded the Medal of Honor.

Walker led an incredible life.

She self-funded a medical school education. She was captured by Confederate soldiers after crossing enemy lines to treat wounded civilians, only to later be arrested as a spy.

She spent four months as a prisoner of war, performed countless field surgeries, and...