This includes pushing ahead on key modernization efforts to make sure soldiers have the best equipment the Army can provide.

“It’s the infantry, still today, that suffers 70 to 80 percent of the casualties. I want those kids to have the best, bar none, with nothing held back,” Milley said. “We owe it to them.”

What’s your assessment of the Army today?

We’ve made some really good progress over the last couple of years. Some external factors have contributed. One is the budget. The second is the op tempo relative to the war in the Middle East.

At one point in time, when I first became the chief, people were actively talking about an [active] Army of 420,000 [soldiers], some were saying 400,000. Those conversations largely are over. So, in terms of manning and strength, I think the bleeding, if you will, the reduction in forces, has stopped.

That’s good news.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have challenges. We do. There are still holes in too many units. We have units, battalions, brigades going to premier training events at less than optimal strength.

Optimal strength I would define as in excess of 90 percent. We are not there yet because we still have gaps and holes in many of our operational units, but there are less gaps and holes than there were 36 months ago.

For more coverage from the AUSA annual meeting, click here.

How is the Army preparing for the next war or challenge?

We refocused on great power competition, or higher-end warfare or full-spectrum operations.

What we did was we wanted to replicate the capabilities that are out there amongst the near-peer competitors, Russia, China, North Korea. We merged them together into an operational environment so that the [opposition forces at the combat training centers] would replicate those types of threats.

The Army is back into doing gunneries on a routine basis. Artillery units are back into doing mass fires. Attack aviation units are back into doing significant aviation operations and air assault operations and so on.

So, across the board, across the entire Army, there has been a refocus. We are hitting the sled repeatedly over and over and over again.

What’s next as you continue to refocus?

I knew we were going to have to shift gears at some point and put a focus on modernization. Secretary [of Defense Jim] Mattis was very plain in his national defense strategy [and] the return of great power competition.

In order to do that, you are going to have to have the capability to shoot down enemy fixed wing, rotary wing, and missiles. So we have got to, in some cases, rebuild, and in other cases innovate brand-new systems that are capable of protecting our tactical units in that type of war.

We have good capability with Patriot and THAAD, but our SHORAD has really been depleted over time, so we are rebuilding that.

We are exploring lots of different innovations in terms of modernization, and we think we can field some things in relatively short order to significantly improve that capability.

I think the American soldier should have the absolute, without question, best equipment, from head to toe, that the American people can possibly afford. That’s everything from the helmet to the goggles to the rifle to the pistol, to the body armor, the uniform, the boots, you name it.

How will the Army afford this?

We cut every single nickel out of the office[s] of the Chief of Staff of the Army and the Secretary of the Army, cut our electricity bill, cut all our computers, cut all the paper we use, cut every single person up here by half, cut the entire Army staff in half, cut all other kinds of budget.

Do not cut the ability of soldiers to have lethality and readiness on the battlefield. That is the last of the cuts.

You don’t cut unit end strength. You don’t cut drill instructors, recruiters. For too many years those are the first things to give way. No, absolutely not.

Cut everything else. Cut aides, cut bands, cut whatever perks people have.

Cut everything before you start cutting shoot, move, communicate for ground forces. That’s my opinion.

The graphic novel is intended to be the first in a series honoring the Army’s Medal of Honor recipients from across the generations.

The AUSA Book Program is behind this effort, which was fueled by soldier feedback and aims to attract and educate a younger audience.

To bring York’s story to life, the organization worked with a team of artists and writers from the world of professional comic book publishers. The team includes members who had worked on everything from “Avengers” to “The Punisher” to “Superman” to “Wolverine.”

For more coverage from the AUSA annual meeting, click here.

On Oct. 8, 1918, York was assigned to Company G, 328th Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division, according to the Army Center of Military History.

After his platoon suffered heavy casualties, York assumed command of the unit.

He fearlessly led seven other men, and he charged a machine gun nest that was pouring deadly and incessant fire on his platoon.

The digital graphic novel is available for download here.

“I believe, and have believed for quite some time, and I have testified to it, that the Army needs to get bigger,” said Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley. “We need to grow in order to meet the demands that the nation expects at the readiness levels it expects.”

The operations tempo in the Army is still “very quick,” Milley said.

“Superficially, you would say the op tempo of the Army has come down because we do not have 100,000 troops in Afghanistan or Iraq,” he said. “People need to remember … we have reduced the size of our Army significantly over the last several years, so the ratio of operations to the size of the force did not radically change.”

The Army fulfills about 50 percent of the Defense Department’s steady state, predicted, year-to-year demands around the world, Milley said.

That number jumps to 60 percent or even 80 percent when there’s an unplanned or emergent demand from a combatant commander, he said.

Ideally, the Army can run on and sustain a one-to-three deployment to dwell time ratio, Milley said. That’s nine months deployed and 27 months at home, for example. But “we are not anywhere close to that,” Milley said.

The Defense Department standard is a one-to-two deployment to dwell ratio for the active Army. Some, such as the Army’s division headquarters, are at one-to-one. Others are at even less than that.

“Very few forces, I would say less than half, are in the range of one-to-two,” Milley said.

On top of that, the Army has placed increased training demands on soldiers.

“You have got to take your artillery out and fire more tables. Your armored units and Bradley units are making more gun runs down the range,” he said. “There is a ton of churn going on in units that is not necessarily reflected in the calculations of op tempo. The soldiers out there today are still very, very busy.”

After years of drawing down from a wartime high of 570,000, the active Army in fiscal year 2017 added 16,000 soldiers for an end-strength of 476,000.

Milley in the past has said the active Army needs between 540,000 to 550,000 soldiers. But he declined to provide a firm number pending the completion of a national strategic review led by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

“The size of a force is relative only to the tasks you want it to do,” Milley said. “We are reviewing the tasks. One way you can change the equation is to reduce or change the tasks. Another way is to increase the size of the force. We are moving through a detailed analysis with Secretary Mattis on that.”

‘Near-peer threats’

Milley also has his eye on the future.

After 16 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has become very good at counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations, Milley said.

But that’s not enough.

“We have to be able to fight against near-peer or regional significant nation-state threats. We have to be able to fight against guerillas and terrorists. We have to be able to deal with homeland crises such as hurricanes,” he said. “You have to be able to do a lot of things if you are the American Army, and you have to be able to do them globally anywhere in the world, and you have to do them in all kinds of terrain against lots of different potential adversaries.”

To get there, the Army must up its training and hone its ability to conduct combined arms warfare.

“We want to make sure that we can operate in a very active, threatening cyber environment. We want to make sure that we can operate in an environment where the enemy has significant artillery capabilities,” Milley said. “We want to make sure we are trained and have the capability to operate in an environment where the enemy has significant electronic warfare jamming capabilities, where the enemy has a significant capability to bring in missiles or rotor wing or fixed wing attack aircraft.”

This requires repetitions at the Army’s combat training centers and at home station. But leaders also are looking to simulators and virtual reality as a way to get soldiers the critical training they need to succeed.

“What I want to do is radically increase the lethality of those soldiers who are primarily tasked with closing with and destroying the enemy at close range,” Milley said.

Shoot, move, communicate

To do that, Milley is looking at the synthetic training environment, he said.

He cited, as an example, F-35 pilots who spend hours in virtual trainers before they climb into the fifth-generation fighter. But the Army doesn’t do the same for its ground combat forces even though the technology is there, he said.

“We know that your ability to shoot, move and communicate and fight at small unit levels is largely a derivative of training and conditioning and habituating your physical and mental reflexes to the conditions and time,” he said. “It is sort of like, to use a sports analogy, hitting the sled. You want to hit the sled over and over and over again in a wide variety of conditions.”

It is very expensive and time-consuming to achieve those repetitions through live-fire training, Milley said.

And yet, “you can today put on a set of goggles, and you can travel to any urban area in the world,” he said. “You can get high fidelity, walk through buildings, walk down streets. And you can do it not only as an individual, but you can do it as a collective, a fire team, squad, a platoon or a company.”

But in order for it to succeed, these synthetic training environments must be easily available, Milley said.

Any investment will be worth it if the Army’s combat troops get the training they need, Milley said.

“The probability of the Special Forces soldier or infantry soldier or cavalry soldier engaging in combat is very high,” he said. “Yet the amount of money we spend on repetitive synthetic training on them and all the skills to make them highly lethal is not necessarily in accordance with other priorities.”

“However, specific concerns were eliminated as possible causes, including maintenance and aircrew flight equipment procedures,” Heyse said.

The decision to resume flight operations at Luke Air Force Base comes as the Air Force showcases the F-35 at the Paris Air Show.

When flight operations resume Wednesday, five criteria will temporarily be applied as technical and human performance data is gathered, Heyse said.

They are:

• Avoid the altitudes in which all five physiological events occurred.

• Modify ground procedures to mitigate physiological risks to pilots.

• Expand physiological training to increase understanding between pilot and medical communities.

• Increase minimum levels for backup oxygen systems for each flight.

• Offer pilots the option of wearing sensors during flight to collect airborne human performance data.

“Our active duty, reserve and international team has worked tirelessly to better understand the physiological events,” said Brig. Gen. Brook Leonard, the 56th Fighter Wing commander, in a statement. “This is a complex challenge that necessitates multidimensional solutions across a series of steps to get back to a full operating capability. We are confident that this initial step with the criteria our team developed will allow us to return to flying F-35s safely and to continue building the future of airpower.”

Half a decade into its search for a new handgun, the Army has chosen Sig Sauer’s P320 as its new service pistol.

Here’s what we know so far:

• The P320, released by Sig Sauer in 2014, is a polymer striker-fired pistol, according to a statement from the gunmaker.

• The new sidearm will replace the M9 Beretta, the Army’s pistol of choice for more than 30 years, according to an Army announcement Jan. 19.

• class=” _wysihtml5-temp-1484936749341″>The P320 is the first modular pistol with interchangeable grip modules that can also be adjusted in frame size and caliber by the user.

• class=” _wysihtml5-temp-1484936749341″>It can be adapted to shoot 9mm, .357 SIG and .40 S&W ammunition, according to Sig Sauer.

• Although neither the Army nor Sig Sauer announced which caliber the Army chose, media reports say the Army chose the 9mm version.

• Sig Sauer confirmed that the Army had selected both the full size and compact P320.

• Soldiers should start getting the new handguns this year, with all of the contract’s weapons delivered over a period of 10 years.

• All pistols will be configurable to receive silencers. 
  
  
• The pistols will have standard and extended capacity magazines.
  
  
• The gun boasts a stainless steel frame that allows users to “change caliber, size and fit at will,” according to promotional material from Sig Sauer. It also has a “cleaner, crisper trigger reset, safe takedown and unprecedented modularity,” the company said.
  
  
• The pistols will be produced at Sig Sauer facilities in New Hampshire, the company said.
  
  

The Sig Sauer P320 was selected as the Army’s new handgun, officials announced Jan. 19. The handguns will be delivered over a period of 10 years.

Photo Credit: Courtesy photo from Sig Sauer

The Army first announced the competition for the Modular Handgun System back in 2011, but multiple delays left the most recent solicitation deadline at February of 2016.

Sig Sauer beat out companies such as Glock and Beretta for the $580 million contract, which includes firearms, accessories and ammunition.

As of Jan. 20, the Army had not provided any additional information on the contract or the weapon.

“We are both humbled and proud that the P320 was selected by the U.S. Army as its weapon of choice,” said Ron Cohen, president and CEO of Sig Sauer, in a statement. “Securing this contract is a testimony to Sig Sauer employees and their commitment to innovation, quality and manufacturing the most reliable firearms in the world.”

Army acquisition executive Steffanie Easter said she is “tremendously proud” of the Modular Handgun System team.

“By maximizing full and open competition across our industry partners, we have optimized private sector advancements in handguns, ammunition and magazines and the end result will ensure a decidedly superior weapon system for our warfighters,” she said.

In addition to the Pacific, soldiers from I Corps and the 7th Infantry Division also are committed around the world. Soldiers from the 7th Infantry headquarters just returned from Afghanistan, while others are serving in Iraq.

“We have to be ready for whatever the nation asks us to do,” Lanza said. “We have forces all over the world, support every combatant command, not just Pacific Command.”

Fresh off having a headquarters element in Afghanistan, the 7th Infantry Division headquarters is now fully focused on the training and readiness of the eight brigades for which it is responsible, said Maj. Gen. Thomas James, the commander of the 7th Infantry.

“What we’re here for is to build and sustain readiness to be regionally engaged in the Pacific and globally responsive,” he said.

The division has training oversight and authority for eight brigades, including the two Stryker brigade combat teams at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, and the Washington Guard’s 81st Stryker BCT through the Army’s Associated Units pilot program, which pairs active-duty units with those in the Guard and Reserve.

The division also is responsible for the 16th Combat Aviation Brigade, the 17th Field Artillery Brigade, the 555th Engineer Brigade, and more, James said.

A Mobile Gun System Stryker from the 8th Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division passes a Type-74 tank from the 33rd Infantry Regiment, 10th Division, Japan Ground Self-Defense Force during Rising Thunder at Yakima Training Center, Wash., Aug. 11.

Photo Credit: Staff Sgt. Steven Schneider/Army

The 7th Infantry headquarters and its eight brigades are “as busy as ever,” James said.

“It’s a misnomer that we’ve reduced in Iraq and Afghanistan so the Army’s doing less,” he said.

Because of that optempo, the division must “take every resource we have and maximize as much training out of it as we can,” James said.

The 7th Infantry will continue to support I Corps as it conducts exercises across the Pacific, including in Yama Sakura and Ulchi Freedom Guardian, James said. The division also supports Pacific Pathways and bilateral exercises such as Rising Thunder and Orient Shield.

These exercises not only allow soldiers to train, but they also get a chance to form relationships and friendships with their counterparts around the world, James said.

“They form these relationships that quite often will last a lifetime,” he said.

Lanza said demand for troops likely will not go down in 2017.

“The requirements are not going down,” he said. “I think the real world requirements for the military will continue to grow. When you talk about the need for the Army, there’s certainly a role for us over there [in the Pacific].”

Despite the high optempo, Lanza said he’s proud of his team and the work his soldiers have done.

“It shows what good, adaptive leaders are able to do,” he said.

“We prioritized the present, and we mortgaged the future,” said Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley. “Frankly, the biggest challenge is having a predictable, steady stream of money to work with industry, [science and technology], and research and development, to accelerate, advance and explore these opportunities and options for the future.”

For full AUSA 2016 coverage:   www.defensenews.com/ausa

The readiness of the Army today to respond to contingencies around the world, from humanitarian assistance to combat against a near-peer competitor, is Milley’s top priority, he said. But the Army also, simultaneously, must lay the groundwork for the future, specifically “the quarter of a century between 2025 and 2050,” he said.

“For the next 10 years, we’re not talking radical shifts” to doctrine, equipment or the organization of the Army, Milley said. “But when you get to 2025, 2050, that’s different.” 

The Army must first figure out what the operating environment will be in that timeframe, then identify the attributes of the type of force it will need, Milley said.

This includes everything from the organization of the Army to the type of weapon systems it’ll need to the kind of training and talent management models it will require, Milley said.

“It’s obvious you can’t predict the future with certainty,” he said. “But there are certain things that I feel confident that we can articulate and we know will probably be true in those 25 years.”

To start, the world is “rapidly urbanizing,” Milley said. Today, between 50 percent and 60 percent of the world’s population live in urban areas, he said. By 2050, Milley predicts that will jump to 80 percent to 90 percent.

“You’re seeing a massive growth right now, as we speak, of megacities,” Milley said. “Today, an example of a megacity is Seoul, South Korea, with 27 million people, that has urban sprawl essentially from the [demilitarized zone] all the way south of Seoul, and it is this massive urban belt and complex.”

The Army has been designed, manned, trained and equipped for the last 241 years to operate primarily in rural areas, Milley said.

“In the future, I can say with very high degrees of confidence, the American Army is probably going to be fighting in urban areas,” he said. “We need to man, organize, train and equip the force for operations in urban areas, highly dense urban areas, and that’s a different construct. We’re not organized like that right now.”

The world’s population also will continue to get younger, Milley said.

“Because of the demographic growth of youth, there are certain regions of the world that are more predisposed to instability than others,” he said. “The Middle East and Africa, for example,
have large youth bulges coming in the next few decades. It’s not a certainty, but it’s a probability that we have large youth bulges, and when you have weak or tepid economies, your probability of instability is higher.”

The political environment also is changing.

“For about 15 years, we fundamentally were in a geostrategic unipolar world, with the United States being the dominant, unquestioned political, diplomatic, economic and military power on Earth,” Milley said. “That is coming into challenge, and it’s shifting to a multipolar world, with the clear unambiguous rise of China, the return of a revanchist Russia, and then, of course, you’ve got Brazil and India and other countries also rising.”

The availability of technology also is changing, Milley said.

“You’re seeing a wide variety of technologies out there that are advancing very, very rapidly,” he said. “The internet of everything, robotics, autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, miniaturization, you’re getting technologies and biological science, neuroscience and the physical sciences that can alter the human performance to conduct certain tasks.”

Robots are already playing a significant role in the air domain, Milley said.

“That’s what Predators and UAVs are,” he said. “All of these technologies together, what they tell me is that we are on the cusp of a fundamental change in the character of ground warfare. And this change is going to be so significant, so fundamental, that it would be analogous to going from a smooth-bore musket to a rifled musket to a rifle. It’s the difference between going from horse cavalry to tanks and wheeled vehicles.”

If the Army doesn’t adapt, “we’re not going to end up prevailing on the battlefield,” Milley said. “And we’re not going to get it right, but what you have to do is you have to do it less wrong than your enemy.”

In the future, the Army likely will face a battlefield that is “intensely lethal,” Milley said. This means the Army must be able to protect itself and operate in small and nimble units that are widely distributed across a large battlefield, he said.

“You’re going to have to do that in order to survive, and then you’re going to have to rapidly aggregate to achieve mass and combat power to achieve an effect on a battlefield,” Milley said. “So it’s going to have to be a force that’s essentially in a stage of constant motion.”

It’s also going to be a force that needs smart, adaptive leaders, he said.

“You can’t have leaders who are not risk-takers, who are not independent, who are not adaptive,” Milley said. “You have to have leaders who are very strong morally, very strong ethically, who are very confident in their skills, who are very comfortable in operating independently but within the construct of a set of values and ethics in which they don’t violate American principles.”

The Army is working hard to lay the groundwork for the future, conducting tests, simulations and analytical studies, Milley said.

“Over the course of the coming year, we will probably come to some fundamentally basic decisions on our organizations, our operating doctrine, and, probably, some major broad areas of weapons programs that are going to be needed in that timeframe,” he said. “That’ll be one of my big areas of personal effort over the course of the next year.”

The challenge remains steady, predictable funding, Milley said.

“It is almost impossible to work with industry and convince them to explore investment opportunities and technologies that could have application to ground warfare unless you can guarantee them a steady stream of resource dollars,” he said. “The money we have right now is only adequate enough to essentially provide seed corn for these technologies and develop some prototypes and some concepts. It’s not enough money to actually go into production-level programs or take the programs into production levels. We don’t have enough money to do that.”

The goal is “when money does become predictable, money does become sufficient,” the Army can further invest in these programs, Milley said.

“We’ve prioritized readiness at the expense of [research and development],” he said. “We have a balanced budget, but it biases toward readiness for today.”

In terms of readiness, the Army continues to make “measurable progress” in its effort to rebuild its fundamental, core warfighting skills, Milley said.

“But we have a long way to go, and it’ll be several years before I’m comfortable with where we need to be,” he said.

For 15 years, the Army and the other services have focused on the fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, Milley said.

“We’ve developed high levels of skill … but the cost of developing those skills and the cost of having to fight that war for a decade and a half is that our skills at fighting a higher-end threat, a near-peer competitor, a nation state, and the bread and butter tasks of conducting combined arms operations atrophied because we didn’t practice it for 15 years,” he said.

Milley cited as examples the Army’s combat arms units.

“Most infantry units have not practiced, on a routine basis, battalion- or brigade-level combined arms live-fire exercises,” he said. “Most armor units have not routinely, for a decade and a half, gone to gunneries. Very, very few artillery units have done battalion gunnery. Aviation, we haven’t done a legitimate brigade air assault since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Apaches haven’t done battalion-level missions since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.”

The wars have led to a “training gap in our skill set, our toolbox,” at fighting higher-end threats, leading the Army to renew its focus on training and, in some cases, re-learning these skills, Milley said.

“We have to keep that going because we’re going to be fighting that type of war,” he said.

The Army’s already seeing progress, he said.

Today, most of the Army’s active-duty brigade combat teams have had the chance to complete a rotation at a combat training center, he said.

“They’ve hit the sled at least once, but that’s not good enough,” he said. “They’re going to have to do it more.”

Milley said he’s confident the Army will continue to build on its training.

“We’ve identified what the problem is, we’ve put the right fixes in place, we’re resourcing it correctly, and we’re seeing improvement,” he said. 

But it’s going to take time to reach the Army’s goal of having about two-thirds of its Regular Army formations at a level of readiness that enables them to “deploy and fight tonight,” Milley said.

“If personnel does not continue to drop and tempo remains constant, and we have steady, consistent funding from Congress, then my estimate is it’ll take until roughly 2020, 2012 timeframe to rebalance the Army in terms of readiness,” he said.

Even though the Army has “a readiness challenge” and “a modernization challenge” while it faces threats from around the world, it should not be discounted, Milley said.

“No one should ever forget that the United States Army is not a small army,” he said. “We’ve got a million soldiers, and they’re committed soldiers. They’re smart, they’re hard, they’re tough, and they’re combat experienced. We’re very well equipped, and even today, we’re reasonably well trained. Even with all these challenges, we’re still better than our adversaries.”

The U.S. military as a whole remains the dominant force in the world, Milley said.

“It’s hard, there are challenges. We’re good, but we want to be better,” he said. “We want to be dominant. We don’t want a fair fight.”

A strong, dominant military also can serve as a deterrent, Milley said.

“Deterrence is way cheaper than war,” he said. “The only thing more expensive than deterring a war is fighting a war, and the only thing more expensive than fighting a war is fighting and losing a war.”

It also expanded his soldiers’ views on international partners, as his soldiers worked with troops from France, Gabon, Chad, Cameroon and the Republic of Congo.

Thomas, 23, and his soldiers spent a month in Gabon, and for most of that time, his soldiers were working in squads, each paired with a different partner army.

This taught him how to operate in a more decentralized manner, as he bounded from one squad to another to make sure the training and partnering were going well, Thomas said.

“Even though we have different equipment, different ways of doing things, even though there’s a language barrier, we can still work together in an international setting to achieve a common mission,” he said. “My squad leaders were really bringing their experience to the mission.”

His soldiers also sharpened their own skills as they trained to conduct a live-fire exercise with the Gabonese army, Thomas said.

“Our team leaders and squad leaders were able to get in the trenches with the Gabonese,” he said. “That’s where I think the Army needs to focus, that junior leader level. If our teams are as strong as they can be, then the squads and platoons and companies will be successful, and it builds up from there.”

Marfongelli agreed.

“You can tell the difference between soldiers who’ve deployed and ones who have not in terms of maturity and basic skills,” he said. “Before we deployed, there was a significant line between those who had and those who hadn’t. While deployed, our junior leaders got that broadening experience to work in a joint agency, multinational environment and put them out of their comfort zone.”

To build on those relationships, Twitty is preparing to dedicate more OCTs to units across the reserve component. This includes 54 OCTs who typically support rotations at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, and the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana.

“Come 1 January, we’re going to stop OCing our active component forces,” Twitty said. “I’m going to take those 54, and we’re going to put them into other units where we don’t have the coverage that I’d like.”

Soldiers assigned to 1st Battalion, 194th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division, move to engage the enemy in a M1A1 Abrams tank during Decisive Action Rotation 16-07 at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif. First Army is working to reduce how much time National Guard units spend at mobilization stations.

Photo Credit: Spc. Daniel Parrott/Army

Twitty also plans to pull back OCTs assigned to units that are participating in the Army’s Associated Units pilot program, which pairs active Army units with those in the reserve component.

Under the pilot, the gaining headquarters unit, for example the 3rd Infantry Division, which is partnered with the Georgia Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team, is responsible for their subordinate Associated Unit’s training, Twitty said.

“What I’m going to do there, the OCs that we would normally have aligned with them, I’m pulling those back, take those forces, and I’m going to put them on others, particularly in the reserve component,” he said. “I think where we have not gotten it right … is in the Army Reserve side. I’m putting more effort in the Reserve with those forces now where we have Associated Units because I can take a little bit of risk there.”

The Army Reserve has a large footprint across the country, and “we’ve partnered with them, but we have not partnered to my liking,” Twitty said.

“I need to put more there, because they have a lot of capabilities that are non-existent in the active Army that I need to put more focus on,” he said.

Partnerships between First Army trainers and their Guard or Reserve units are long-term commitments, Twitty said.

“Every single thing you do in terms of training, we’re there to assist you along the way,” he said. “We’re constantly engaged with you to ensure you’re meeting your readiness needs. I have nine brigades, and each of my nine brigades, they’re partnered with units.”

His trainers regularly visit with their partnered units and work with them to develop training plans, Twitty said.

“It’s a relationship that assists a National Guard or Army Reserve unit meet their training objectives, focused on individual training first and then collective training,” he said.

Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Glenn (left), a First Army observer coach/trainer, observes the movement of soldiers from the Iowa Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division, during an exportable combat training capability exercise at Fort McCoy, Wis. First Army has nearly 200 observer coach/trainers supporting the three-week exercise.

Photo Credit: Master Sgt. Gail Braymen/Army

First Army also is working to help its Guard and Reserve partners conduct individual training at their home stations, Twitty said.

“When units showed up for post-mob prior to deploying, we took them through individual training,” he said. “We’re no longer going to do that.”

Post-mobilization training should be focused on collective training, Twitty said, adding that this is another way to reduce the amount of time units spend at their mobilization stations.

On average, it takes about 100 days to get a brigade combat team through their post-mobilization training, Twitty said.

“One hundred days is a non-starter in my view,” he said. “Seventy-five days to get a brigade combat team out the door is a non-starter. With the amount of active-duty BCTs that we have in our Army today, we have to have our National Guard BCTs ready to deploy.”

First Army continues to work with the Army Guard to “come up with the right number,” Twitty said.

“I don’t know what that’s going to be, but we’re coming together to talk about it,” he said.

The goal, under a four-year model, is to have two Guard brigades ready to go if needed, Twitty said.

“Two brigades is a lot, that’s almost 10,000 soldiers in addition to the Army’s capability that we can deploy when needed,” he said.

As the First Army OCTs continue to work with Guard and Reserve, the units are most often asking for subject matter experts, Twitty said.

“For the past 15 years, they have been fighting a counter-insurgency fight as well,” he said. “They know very little about decisive action training. We’ve had to train our OCs on decisive action, so our OCs can train them on decisive action.”

The units also are seeking training on their core warfighting skills, such as gunnery, Twitty said.

The challenge going forward will be balancing the soldiers’ military and civilian lives, he said.

“There’s no doubt that we can train our National Guard brigades to be ready and deploy, but these soldiers didn’t sign up to be full-time soldiers, so we’ve got to make sure that as we take a hard look at this, we also balance their jobs and their families,” Twitty said.