ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

Three soldiers, selected as the 2015 Army athletes and coach of the year, were honored at the Association of the U.S. Army Global Force Symposium and Exposition in Huntsville, Alabama.

Capt. Alexander Driscoll, a U.S. Armed Forces Cycling Team member who served in Afghanistan during Operation Iraqi Freedom as an infantry platoon leader and is now a military intelligence officer at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, was recognized as the 2015 Army Male Athlete of the Year.

First Lieutenant April Ortenzo, starting short stop on the All-Army Softball Team and on the U.S. Armed Forces Softball Team, was...

Our nation’s security and the lives of our soldiers are being put at risk by clinging to the notion that playing political games with military spending is a harmless game of chicken. Our Army is holding on, hoping for a better day, and our troops are restless for a solution.

Because of outdated defense spending limits and the returning threat of sequestration, America’s Army is engaged in budgetary triage, attempting to increase combat readiness while facing inadequate budgets. Instead of having the best-prepared, best-trained and best-equipped fighting force in the world, our Army is finding...

There are plenty of things I’ll miss when I eventually leave the Army: the camaraderie, the sense of duty, and being part of something bigger than myself.

Chaplain (Col.) Wesley V. Geary, USA, Ret., a former Association of the U.S. Army Texas state president and an AUSA life member, died at his home in Plano, Texas, Feb. 24.

Throughout his military career and as an Army "Soldier for Life," Chaplain Geary was deeply committed to supporting soldiers, soldier families and Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) cadets.

A graduate of Texas College in Tyler, and one of the first black graduates of Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, Geary served parishes in Texas, Florida, Arkansas, and Oklahoma before joining the U.S...

The 32nd Annual Army Ten-Miler will be held on Sunday, Oct. 9, at 8 a.m., at the Pentagon.

Produced by the U.S. Army Military District of Washington, the Army’s race will attract military and civilian runners from around the world.

All race proceeds will benefit soldier and soldier family Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR) programs.

Army Ten-Miler officials have confirmed that they will continue the two-phase registration process for the Army’s race that was introduced in 2011.

Priority registration, presented by Navy Federal Credit Union, for all U.S. service members and runners who have...

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

Last month I addressed why soldiers from all three components of the Army – the Regular Army, Army National Guard and Army Reserve – along with our Army veterans, retired soldiers, Army civilians, friends and supporters of the Army, and our family members, should join AUSA.

After traveling to a myriad of posts, camps, stations and enclaves of soldiers across the country, I felt compelled to talk about the other...

Ensuring that all school-age children receive a consistent and high quality education is a struggle in the civilian world.

But it is doubly so for military families because of the constant moves from base to base and school district to school district.

That is why a group of current and former military spouses is banding together to advocate for high education standards at the local level – no matter the location, no matter the duty station.

Called Military Families for High Standards, the group seeks to build awareness about the damaging impact that insufficient standards has on the families of...

I am the proud mother of a young soldier currently serving in Fort Hood, Texas.

I have a Family Membership in AUSA and my son has a Regular Army Membership.

I am very fortunate that we have a great relationship built through our love of adventures.

When he was a little boy, I ignored those voices who warned me not to travel with little ones and took him to the other side of the world (I promise we did not bother the other airplane passengers – too much).

My son was nine years old when we visited Greece. We went snorkeling in the Aegean Sea near Crete to find sunken treasures, and explored the...

AUSA Institute of Land Warfare

AUSA’s Institute of Land Warfare (ILW) recently released two Defense Reports.

POW/MIA

"Until They All Come Home: The Defense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Agency" (Defense Report 16-1, February 2016) discusses this agency’s efforts to ensure that all deceased American service members are recovered, identified and returned to their families.

Three separate organizations – the Defense Prisoner of War Missing Personnel Office, the Joint Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Accounting Command and the Air Force Life Sciences Equipment Laboratory – were merged...

For 240 years we have been training Soldiers how to do some of the most technical trades in the Nation.

Welding, electrical engineering, hazardous materials transportation and many other skills are taught in the military professional education system, and perfected over a career.

But, we have never given these experts a way to receive credit for that knowledge and skill in the civilian workforce – until now.

A new component of our Professional Development process under the banner of the newly launched Army University system will help create a career-ready workforce.

Soldiers have training...

Soldiers are being asked to do the impossible, carrying out missions while humping over 100 pounds of gear, said Col. Kurt "Travis" Thompson.

They’re doing the impossible every day, but they can do much more if that burden is eased, he said.

Thompson, chief, Soldier Requirements Division, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command Capability Manager – Soldier, spoke at a robotics conference in Springfield, Va.

A promising solution, he said, is the Squad Maneuver Equipment Transport, or SMET.

What it looks like and what it will be capable of doing is still pretty much an open question, he said.

But the...

An "unintended consequence" of tight defense budgets is accepting that the Army "can no longer afford to equip and sustain the force with the most modern equipment," Army acquisition officials warned Congress in early March.

The net result, they said, is a risk of "falling behind near-peers in critical areas."

"We are forced to selectively modernize equipment to counter our adversary’s most significant technological advances," Lt. Gen. Michael E. Williamson and Lt. Gen. John M. Murray said in a joint statement to the House Armed Services Committee.

Williamson is the principal military deputy to...

As you read this, the cherry tree blossoms are getting ready to hit their peak bloom around the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C.

The AUSA national headquarters is located across the Potomac River in Arlington, Va., so on my frequent trips to the Capitol Hill I have the privilege to see the many sights and monuments that make the capital of our United States the special place that it is.

To me they never get old, and each has its own significance.

I share this because in any presidential election year, and especially in this particularly raucous and uncivil election year, it is easy to become...

On a cold field, soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 28th Infantry Division, Pennsylvania National Guard, along with their counterparts from the 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division are deep in the final stages of their Kosovo pre-deployment training.

Helping them ramp up is a complex organization of observers, planners and role-players guiding the scenarios.

An integral component of the training team are 35 soldiers from the California National Guard’s 40th Infantry Division.

Their task less glamorous, their job more tedious, running 24-7 operations, the...

Budget uncertainty is having a long-range impact on the U.S. Army, making it difficult to plan training, readiness and modernization programs, a senior Army budget official warned.

Lt. Gen. Karen Dyson, military deputy to the assistant Army secretary for financial management, said not knowing how much money is available this year, and the unpredictability of global threats, make it hard to do long-range planning.

The unknowns are "really constraining our ability to invest in the future," Dyson said at a breakfast hosted by the Association of the U.S. Army’s Institute of Land Warfare.

The Army’s...