The 21st century security environment—volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous—presents enormous challenges to the joint force.
Against a backdrop of banners, students and a crowd of several hundred people, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., then Army chief of Staff, and other national leaders officially unveiled Project PASS at North Middle School in Radcliff, Ky., one of the first host sites.Project PASS – Partnership for All Student Success – is an umbrella for high schools that feature Junior ROTC and middle schools with a new program called the Junior Leadership Corps for seventh- and eighth-grade students.Casey and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan heralded the initiative as a potential life-changer for students in...
As the Army adapts to multiple operational environments and a constantly evolving enemy threat, so must our leaders and leadership development. Understanding and having the ability to implement Mission Command, and balancing the art of command with the science of control, is imperative in an ever-changing Army.
To accomplish this effectively, current and future leaders must understand the capabilities, purpose and application of the Army’s digital systems. The ability to communicate plans, battle track and forecast sustainment needs through these systems is expected. The days of dry erase...
Cyber capabilities within the U.S. Army need to be integrated and converged to keep up with the rapidly growing field of threats, Army cyber leaders and civilian experts said Wednesday during the Association of the U.S. Army’s 2015 Annual Meeting and Exposition.
Maj. Gen. Stephen G. Fogarty, commanding general, Cyber Center of Excellence and Fort Gordon, Ga., defined convergence as "the effective merging or integration of distinct staffs, networks and systems into a unified whole to achieve decisive results."
"The Army integrates cyber with other forms of maneuver to deny the enemy’s ability to...
Decrying a noted decline in employee engagement across the federal government and the civilian military workforce, the commanding general of the U.S. Army Medical Command said such engagement is an important part of maintaining the Army’s readiness at a time of change.
Lt. Gen. Patricia D. Horoho, the 43rd Army Surgeon General, addressed the Department of the Army Civilian Awards Luncheon on the concluding day of the Association of the United States Army’s 2015 Annual Meeting and Exposition.
Horoho, who is concluding her four-year tour as Army surgeon general, lauded the work of civilians in her...
All United States service members will leave Iraq by the end of the year, President Barack Obama announced Oct. 21.About 40,000 U.S. service members are in the country, and all will be "home for the holidays," Obama said.The president made the announcement after speaking with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.Since American forces went into Iraq in March 2003, more than one million Americans have deployed to the Middle Eastern country — many multiple times. More than 32,200 U.S. service members and civilians have been wounded in the country, and 4,482 were killed."Today, I can report that...
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is asking the Army to help him determine what the service will need to look like in a future of changing threats and reduced budgets, he told an audience at the AUSA Annual Meeting and Exposition on Wednesday, Oct. 12.Congress has mandated the Department of Defense has to cut $450 billion over the next ten years, Panetta said. Those cuts will have to be borne by the entire department, and the various service leaders should cooperate, not compete, to determine what will have to be cut, he said."The budget and drawdowns that we’re facing obviously are going to...
Former Army Spc. Tim Duer had been working in computer information systems at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, for just a couple of weeks last October when an email made the rounds noting that the facility planned to mark the upcoming Veterans Day with a gathering and ceremony.
Duer, 46, had never worked for a private-sector company that did such a thing, so he wanted to check it out.
The program included remarks by the hospital’s chief medical officer, Navy veteran Dr. Richard Brilli, who told a story about one of the most memorable trauma cases from his time in uniform. It was...
Rocky Research didn’t set out to create a new type of armor—far from it. When the new material first slid out of the company’s production oven, it caused considerable consternation. A worker responsible for cutting the material into usable shapes for a high-tech heat dissipation system found that it couldn’t be cut with ordinary tools.
Wondering just how strong this new material was, he took it to a shooting range and discovered that bullets couldn’t pierce it, either. The material proved so durable that “we had to laser-cut it,” said Uwe Rockenfeller, president and CEO of Nevada-based Rocky...
Imagine trying to explain Little League, college ball and Major League as a distinct each, without understanding they are all forms of baseball. Each is slightly different, but their commonalities help explain their differences.
It seems that too many civilian strategists and military leaders have been trying to do just that when it comes to war. To be sure, there are different forms of war, but each variety of war cannot be understood separately from its common source. All forms of war reflect war’s essential nature and arise from particular circumstances. Each form, therefore, is different...
As he prepares to step down June 30 as president and CEO of the Association of the U.S. Army, retired Army Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan is deeply concerned about the future. Not his, but the Army’s.
“We may be living a tragedy,” said the 78-year-old Quincy, Mass., native, who worries about an undermanned and under-resourced Army being called upon to send soldiers into battle who may be less than fully prepared, less than fully armed, and at less than full strength. “The Army has changed, and I am not sure it is for the better,” Sullivan said. “I see the Army being emasculated.”
Sullivan spent more...
It is Day No. 6 of the 13-day crucible known as a Joint Readiness Training Center rotation. Your unit is tired and every element, from the staff working on the next battle update brief to the private guarding his unit’s perimeter, is stressed to the maximum. On edge, you wait for the next attack, whether by direct or indirect fire.
This is usually the time that the battalion’s top leaders—the S3 (operations and training officer), executive officer, commander, command sergeant major and operations sergeant major—ask themselves and the observer/controller trainers, “Did we do everything we needed...
The military conflict between Russia and Ukraine is now in its 25th month. What began as a relatively bloodless superpower intervention in Crimea and morphed into a proxy “separatist” insurrection in the Donbass region has turned into a two-year-long, real war. Despite repeated attempts to negotiate an effective cease-fire, the struggle in Ukraine has involved the largest-scale battles in Europe since the end of World War II.
Like the Yom Kippur War 40 years earlier, the Russo-Ukraine War is a natural “test bed” and insightful glimpse of what is to come on future battlefields. What follows are...
The military conflict between Russia and Ukraine is now in its 25th month. What began as a relatively bloodless superpower intervention in Crimea and morphed into a proxy “separatist” insurrection in the Donbass region has turned into a two-year-long, real war. Despite repeated attempts to negotiate an effective cease-fire, the struggle in Ukraine has involved the largest-scale battles in Europe since the end of World War II.
Like the Yom Kippur War 40 years earlier, the Russo-Ukraine War is a natural “test bed” and insightful glimpse of what is to come on future battlefields. What follows are...
One hundred years ago, President Woodrow Wilson signed the National Defense Act of 1916 establishing the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. Throughout the following century, the U.S. and its Army faced numerous challenges both at home and abroad. Wars against despotic foreign governments were fought and won; economic depressions endured; medical, scientific and technological advances were made; and U.S.-led peacekeeping operations contributed to greater global stability.
At U.S. Army Cadet Command, we take great pride in the role our ROTC graduates played in virtually every aspect of life during...