ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

President Barack Obama awarded retired Army Lt. Col. Charles Kettles the Medal of Honor during a White House Ceremony on Monday, July 18.

“You couldn’t make this up. It’s like a bad Rambo movie,” Obama said, describing the harrowing exploits of then-Maj. Kettles, on that fateful day, May 15, 1967, in “Chump Valley,” South Vietnam.

As commander of the 176th Aviation Company, Kettles’ mission was to fly in reinforcements and evacuate wounded soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division, who were outgunned and outnumbered by the North Vietnamese in a rural riverbed near Duc Pho. “They needed support...

The value of Civil Affairs (CA) has become increasingly apparent – it remains a national strategic capability that consolidates political-military gains and helps post-conflict transition from war to peace and from military to civilian lead.

It also serves to engage partners and other players in shaping, influencing, and stabilizing the human environment, and to contribute to preventing conflict.

CA can do so only when appropriately leveraged by commanders who understand its strategic and operational values.

This is most important at the theater strategic level, where CA is very useful to...

Twenty-six AUSA chapter presidents and four region presidents attended an Association two-and-a-half day training program focusing on membership and chapter operations.

Welcomed to the national headquarters in Arlington, Va., by retired Gen. Carter Ham, AUSA president and CEO, and retired Lt. Gen. Pat McQuistion, vice president for membership and meetings, the class first toured the headquarters and met the Association staff.

The program was hosted by the Regional Activities Directorate, led by retired Col. John Davies.

Briefers included: retired Lt. Gen. Guy Swan, vice president, education; John...

Greetings from the Association of the United States Army (AUSA), our Army’s and our soldiers’ professional organization.

Across the Army and around the world, Army leaders, soldiers, Army civilians, retired soldiers, veterans, industry leaders and Army families are all excited about this year’s Association of the United States Army’s (AUSA) Annual Meeting and Exposition in October here in our Nation’s Capital.

For those who have attended the AUSA Annual Meeting in the past, you will immediately note the schedule is a week earlier this year and not in conjunction with the Columbus Day weekend nor...

Best Overall Chapters

Tie: Redstone – Huntsville and George Washington

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Hawaii

Arizona Territorial

Monmouth

Gen. William C. Westmoreland

Best Overseas Chapter

Hawaii

Largest Overall Membership

George Washington

Chapters of Excellence

Arizona Territorial

Arsenal of Democracy

Capital District of New York

Captain Meriwether Lewis

Central Ohio

Connecticut

First Militia

Gen. William C. Westmoreland

George Washington

Hawaii

Houston Metroplex

Kuwait

Maj. Gen. Harry Greene, Aberdeen

Maj Samuel Woodfill

Monmouth

North Texas – Audie Murphy

Northern New Jersey

Redstone – Huntsville

Rhode Island

Rock Island Arsenal

St. Louis...

Tickets are now on sale for Association of the U.S. Army events during the 2016 Annual Meeting and Exposition, Oct. 3 to 5, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.

The meeting, expected to draw more than 26,000 attendees, is North America’s largest exhibition of land power, and features professional development forums, workshops and panel discussions.

There are eight ticketed events, all with lower prices for AUSA members than for nonmembers.

For members, prices range from $25 for an Oct. 4 breakfast for senior warrant officers to $115 for the Oct. 5 Marshall Memorial...

September will be a critical month on Capitol Hill. After Labor Day, Congress will return from a lengthy seven-week recess.

Immediately upon their return, the members will be faced with the fact that no appropriations bills have been sent to the president yet, and the government fiscal year ends on Oct.1.

The members will go through the annual ritual of passing a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government at last year’s levels, with the main debate being over the question of how long the CR should last.

Will it last until Christmas, with the hope that a “lame duck” session in December will...

Where we stand. House and Senate conference negotiations on the fiscal 2017 Defense Authorization Bill will resume when Congress returns from the August recess.

Before they departed, House and Senate Armed Services Committee leaders held a closed-door meeting with members of outside panels who share jurisdiction on some of the provisions contained in the defense policy bills.

This gave those members the opportunity to share their views.

AUSA also weighed in.

A July 14 letter sent to the committees from AUSA and its partners in The Military Coalition (TMC), a consortium of uniformed services and...

Breathtakingly swift advances in cyber threats, capabilities and technology will heavily impact the Army’s efforts to develop its network for both offensive and defensive operations, said Maj. Gen. Paul Nakasone, commander of the U.S. Cyber Command’s Cyber National Mission Force.

Against that backdrop, he said, the release of the Army Network Campaign Plan in February 2015 to guide those efforts “seems well-placed.”

Nakasone gave the keynote address at the Hot Topic forum “Network Readiness in a Complex World,” sponsored by the Association of the U.S. Army’s Institute of Land Warfare.

He said the...

Army combat medics live by a creed of trust.

Those who have proven their skills under fire and put others’ lives before their own receive the nickname “Doc.”

From the time soon-to-be medics give their first IV at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, to the day they hang up their aid bag, they will endure blood, sweat and guts to maintain that title.

With 17 years of experience and two deployments, Army Staff Sgt. Brad Foster, with the Oregon Army National Guard’s Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3rd Combined Arms Battalion, 116th Heavy Brigade Combat Team (HBCT), from Pendleton, Oregon, has earned the...

“America’s Army: Ready Today, Preparing for the Future,” the theme of the Association of the United States Army’s 2016 Annual Meeting and Exposition, Oct. 3 to 5, will set the tone for speeches, industry and military exhibits, and special presentations from senior Defense Department and Army leaders on subjects relating to today’s Army and the Army of the future.

The AUSA meeting – A Professional Development Forum – will focus on panel discussions; Contemporary Military Forums; Military Family Forums; Homeland Security Breakout Sessions; and special multimedia presentations and educational...

The Association of the U.S. Army is elevating the attention paid to soldier, NCO and family issues by putting retired Sgt. Maj. of the Army Kenneth O. Preston in a senior adviser position similar to his final Army assignment as the senior enlisted adviser to the Army chief of staff.

AUSA’s director of noncommissioned officer and soldier programs since 2013, Preston now reports directly to retired Army Gen. Carter F. Ham, the Association’s president and CEO.

“NCO and soldier programs are at the very core of what the Association of the United States Army stands for,” Ham said.

Adding, “Whether...

AUSA News, the Association’s monthly newspaper for members, will transition to an exclusively digital publication in 2017.

Like the printed edition, the AUSA News digital edition will be available to all AUSA members and will continue to tell “The AUSA Story” and “The Army Story.”

The digital version has been available as an option since 2012, so some members have taken advantage of this medium.

AUSA News in the digital format will maintain its level of quality reporting and coverage, only the delivery method will change.

AUSA News digital will have a number of benefits. It will arrive in your...

Warfighters wielding the most powerful weapons in the world—their brains—are working in a seemingly unremarkable building on the grounds of Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md. They are the uniformed and civilian scientists and support staff of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, and they protect and defend soldiers against all enemies biological.

“The easy way to look at it is, we deal with things that kill you,” said Randal J. Schoepp, applied diagnostics branch chief at the institute, known as USAMRIID.

That explains why the institute is playing only a minimal role in...

By the end of August 1944, Gen. George S. Patton Jr.’s III Corps had left a swath of destruction across Europe. They had captured or destroyed over 4,300 German tanks, artillery pieces and vehicles while losing fewer than 500 of their own tanks and artillery. Even the death toll was lopsided. As of Aug. 23 of that year, the Germans had lost 16,000 soldiers, killed at the hands of III Corps, compared to approximately 2,000 U.S. service members killed in action.

Patton’s rapid 500-mile trek across Europe can be summed up in one word: Attack! The speed at which he moved left the Germans confused...