ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

According to a 2017 report from the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, the U.S. has invested more than $100 billion in training and equipping security forces in Iraq and Afghanistan since operations began there in 2002. To say results are mixed is a severe understatement.

Both countries have required the continued presence—and in Iraq, a return—of thousands of American service members to bolster local military and police forces with training and resources, aimed at regaining lost territory and repelling adversaries. With more troops deploying, the investment continues...

Varying Strategies in Diverse Theaters Won War

The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won. Victor Davis Hanson. Basic Books. 720 pages. $40

By Col. Gregory Fontenot
U.S. Army retired

Often provocative, always ambitious Victor Davis Hanson has produced another sweeping narrative spiked with insights drawn on years of study of classical and military history. While Hanson is an accomplished scholar, The Second World Wars is his first foray, aside from opinion pieces, into 20th-century warfare. It is a grand success. This is a particularly practical book for those not...

Throughout history there have been numerous medical advances on the battlefield. During Alexander the Great’s military campaigns in the 4th century B.C., soldiers with bleeding extremity wounds were taken care of through the use of tourniquets. Tourniquets were also employed by the Romans during amputations. The practice of using an early stretcher made from wicker and placed on a frame was recorded in a 1380 A.D. manuscript. Simple stretchers were used to transport casualties during wartime through the mid-20th century. The practice of triage was pioneered during the Napoleonic Wars. American...

Kenny Rogers’ country classic Coward of the County portrays advice from an old man who spent his life fighting. The advice was simple: Don’t do it. The intended recipient was a young man who ignored that advice.

We are old men who spent the better part of two decades fighting on the battlefields of the Middle East and in the halls of the Pentagon. In the Middle East, our enemies were insurgents. In the Pentagon, we were the insurgents: pushing the Army to adapt to the challenges of irregular warfare. Our goal here is not to refight those old battles. Instead, in the great tradition of Kenny...

Kenny Rogers’ country classic Coward of the County portrays advice from an old man who spent his life fighting. The advice was simple: Don’t do it. The intended recipient was a young man who ignored that advice.

We are old men who spent the better part of two decades fighting on the battlefields of the Middle East and in the halls of the Pentagon. In the Middle East, our enemies were insurgents. In the Pentagon, we were the insurgents: pushing the Army to adapt to the challenges of irregular warfare. Our goal here is not to refight those old battles. Instead, in the great tradition of Kenny...

The Army’s decision to create security force assistance brigades is the right decision at the right time. The Army is taking great pains to staff these units with the best people, place them in the right locations and create personnel systems that help sustain the initial quality. These efforts will pay big dividends for the Army as well as the nation. As necessary as these brigades are, however, they are not sufficient.

No analogy is perfect, but picturing an army as a spear does highlight several important features. At the tip of the spear are an army’s combat units, its fighters. At the far...

Lt. Gen. Nadja Y. West, the 44th Army surgeon general and the U.S. Army Medical Command commanding general, describes her mission of transforming military medicine as a two-part proposition.

First, and what she said is the easier part, are technological upgrades, something she described as “delivering new tools.” This includes finding ways of extending the life of a soldier injured on a future battlefield who may not have access to highly trained doctors and well-equipped hospitals for 72 hours or longer. Robotic surgery, new ways of stopping bleeding like injecting a caulk-like substance into...

A principle of the philosophy of Mission Command is the exercise of disciplined initiative with adaptive, bold, audacious and imaginative leaders. The “Red Warriors” of the 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, are empowered to exercise this philosophy and find solutions.

The battalion, based at Fort Carson, Colo., needed a solution for an expeditionary platform during collective training in preparation for a year’s culminating training event at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Fort Polk, La. During counterinsurgency...

A principle of the philosophy of Mission Command is the exercise of disciplined initiative with adaptive, bold, audacious and imaginative leaders. The “Red Warriors” of the 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, are empowered to exercise this philosophy and find solutions.

The battalion, based at Fort Carson, Colo., needed a solution for an expeditionary platform during collective training in preparation for a year’s culminating training event at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Fort Polk, La. During counterinsurgency...

Afour-man team from the 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C., captured the Best Mortar Team Trophy during the inaugural Best Mortar Competition held at Fort Benning, Ga.

The winning four-man team included Staff Sgt. James Pennington, Sgt. Ryan Mosser, Cpl. Jacob Nolan and Cpl. Alec Norton.

Earning the Best Individual Trophy was Sgt. 1st Class Yuslandy Figueredo, of the 198th Infantry Training Brigade.

Pennington said the soldiers on his team all love their jobs and realize the vital role mortars play in an infantry formation – that might have contributed to their success in the first-ever...

Greetings from the Association of the United States Army (AUSA), our Army’s association for education and professional development, and a major supporter of the Army’s Soldier for Life efforts.

The 4th Bi-Annual Sullivan Cup Competition took place April 30 through May 4 at Fort Benning, Ga., with 15 tank crews competing to be the “Best of the Best.”

The Sullivan Cup is named for retired Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, the 32nd Army chief of staff, and the former AUSA president and CEO.

The five-day competition allows the best tank crews from across the U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps and select...

The Association of the U.S. Army’s leadership recently approved the 2018 Focus Areas.

The Focus Areas mark a milestone for AUSA Government Affairs and are already improving our outreach on Capitol Hill.

This concise list of 10 major areas (See Page 2 of AUSA News) provides a conversation-starter as we visit members of Congress and their staffs.

On one single page, we have created a strategic document that outlines key actions required to fund, maintain, sustain and modernize the U.S. Army.

Your Government Affairs team sent the Focus Areas to every legislative director and military legislative...

The University of North Carolina at Wilmington (UNCW) is now the first university subchapter of the Braxton Bragg Chapter of the Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA) in North Carolina.

AUSA, a nonprofit educational and professional development association, works to recognize, support and honor those who have served. The Braxton Bragg Chapter is one of the largest AUSA chapters.

The UNCW AUSA subchapter will work alongside the greater Wilmington community to provide access to support services like educational scholarships, networking events and professional development opportunities for active...

Navigating the budget process for any government system must be a daunting task, let alone making any significant change, but it appears it can be done.

Each year the Redstone-Huntsville Chapter of the Association of the United States Army recognizes local Department of the Army civilians who have demonstrated exceptional performance as members of the Army team.

Clifford Crivello was nominated for one such award for putting his mark on the foreign military sales (FMS) financial world.

Crivello, resource manager for the U.S. Army Security Assistance Command (USASAC), made a suggestion to a $100...

Two relatively new initiatives are cutting costs and reducing the time it takes to get new equipment into the hands of warfighters, said Army logisticians.

The initiatives are the Defense Innovation Unit – Experimental (DIUx), a mechanism for executing prototype contracts quickly, and additive manufacturing, a process that uses 3-D printers to produce metal parts that are traditionally machined on mills and lathes or forged.

The logisticians spoke at an Association of the United States Army Sustainment Hot Topic forum at the Virginia State University in Petersburg, Va.

Additive manufacturing

The...