A whole lot of men I learned from during my service, were personally mentored by one of the most brilliant men I have ever met.
GEN Peter Schoomaker not only commanded SOF elements from the small unit level all the way up to USSOCOM, but he was also called back to active duty from retirement to serve as Chief of Staff of the Army, early in the war.
His set of rules are a simple example of his leadership philosophy. I hope you gain from them as much as so many others have.
HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. —
Today, Colonel Brian Helton relinquished command to Colonel Robert Johnston who is now dual-hatted as commander of the 492d Special Operations Training Group and the Air Commando Development Center-Provisional, ACDC-P.
The evolution to ACDC-P with this change of command signifies Air Force Special Operations Command’s commitment to deliberate training and experiencing, to ready Air Commandos for crisis, competition, counter violent extremism and conflict.
“I am honored to be part of this team and extremely grateful for the privilege and the opportunity to lead it,” said Johnston. “This is an extraordinary unit charged with a critical responsibility; to develop our air commandos for future generations to come. You’ve already done it in an outstanding manner, and I expect nothing less as we make the transition.”
The ACDC-P is comprised of the U.S. Air Force Special Operations School, the 371st Special Operations Combat Training Squadron and the new 370th Special Operations Combat Training Squadron planned for fiscal year 2024. Additionally, the ACDC-P will be a direct report unit to the Air Force Special Operations Command commander.
The center will execute development for all personnel assigned to AFSOC, core-SOF and non-core SOF AFSCs, as well as direct specialized combat training in the appropriate Force Generation phase to enable preparation in addition to certification, verification, and validation prior to deployment. Standing up the ACDC-P demonstrates the commitment AFSOC places on developing a high-performing Air Commando force.
“We’re reframing our thinking on the way we organize, train and equip Air Commandos to meet our future challenges,” said Lt Gen Tony Bauernfeind, AFSOC commander. “We must continually develop our teams by ensuring our Air Commandos have the right training and experiences they need to fight tonight…and standing up the ACDC will meet that intent.”
These changes continue AFSOC’s efforts to get after Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. C.Q. Brown Jr.’s five drivers for change across the force: Force Generation, Agile Combat Employment, Multi-capable Airmen, wing A-staff implementation and mission command.
By 2nd Lt Cassandra Saphore, Air Force Special Operations Command Public Affairs
Calling all Arctic Angels and Soldiers who have had the opportunity to serve in Alaska.
The Arctic can be a harsh, ever-changing environment.
The skills to live, work and thrive there are invaluable, and now there’s an identifier to prove it.
Actually, there are four to distinguish those who have completed cold weather training.
Arctic Skills Specialist – J1
Arctic Soldier – J6
Arctic Leader – E9
Arctic Aviator/Operator – E2
For details, contact Division G1 Readiness or visit:
11thairbornedivision.army.mil/Portals/108/Arctic%20Additional%20Skill%20Identifier
The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States were a watershed in U.S. history. Though terrorist attacks on the American homeland and its global assets were not unique, they were neither common nor large scale.
The 9/11 attacks prompted a U.S. counterattack in fall 2001 against Afghanistan, which was the haven and training ground for the 19 Al Qaeda terrorists who had hijacked the four commercial airliners that claimed nearly 3,000 lives. Then, in spring 2003, came the invasion of Iraq for numerous reasons, most of all for allegedly developing and possessing weapons of mass destruction.
Though U.S.-led international military operations against Afghanistan and Iraq were initially successful and generally conventional in nature, occupation of both countries without full conquest of either one quickly inspired insurgency, often supported by international terrorist organizations. This shift led the American military to formulate counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine to guide its ground forces primarily.
COIN required complex and nuanced operations directed at defeating the insurgents while rebuilding both countries as independent and secure states. TRADOC’s role in the roughly twenty years of the Global War on Terrorism involved training Soldiers for duty, principally in Southwest Asia and the Middle East, and convening the experts who produced the first formal Army doctrinal manual for conducting counterinsurgency operations since the Vietnam War.
After Vietnam and TRADOC’s establishment in July 1973, the U.S. Army largely abandoned its traditional experience with insurgency and counterinsurgency, dating all the way back to the American War of Independence. After the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the Army focused instead on the activities and programs associated with the Europe-focused AirLand Battle and the Big 5 materiel developments.
Now faced with the need from 2003 onward to defeat robust insurgencies, the Army, with TRADOC leading and with significant contributions from the U.S. Marine Corps, began to resurrect, revise, and reissue counterinsurgency doctrine.
Along the way as a stopgap measure, the Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas-based U.S. Army Combined Arms Center published Field Manual-Interim 3-07.22, Counterinsurgency Operations, in October 2004, with a scheduled expiration two years hence.
Then-Lieutenant General William S. Wallace, later the 12th TRADOC Commanding General, commanded CAC, which oversaw most of the Army’s service schools and wrote the bulk of the service’s doctrine. The changes initiated by the new counterinsurgency manual ultimately resulted in a cascade of updated doctrinal publications, including capstone doctrine, all reflecting the experiences of recent combat operations.
In September 2005, then-Lieutenant General David H. Petraeus assumed the duties of CAC Commanding General. Petraeus possessed extensive counter-terrorism experience in Bosnia about the time of the 9/11 attacks and later while commanding the 101st Airborne Division during and after the Iraq invasion.
Right away, Petraeus engaged both his USMC GWOT colleague, then-Lieutenant General James N. Mattis, commanding the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, and his West Point classmate, retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Conrad C. Crane, then-Senior Historian at the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute.
Starting in mid-February 2006 in a conference at CAC, Dr. Crane led the writing team composed of experts from the military, academia, and the private sector and served as the principal author for the Army’s effort quickly to research, write, publish, and distribute the seminal December 2006 joint Army-USMC FM 3-24/Marine Corps Warfighting Publication 3-33.5, Counterinsurgency. The manual served for the next eight years as the Army’s guidepost for conducting GWOT counterinsurgencies.
Rooted in both historical study and contemporary experience, the manual drew immediate worldwide attention for many reasons, including its counterintuitive yet utilitarian “Paradoxes of Counterinsurgency Operations,” which included such strictures as “Sometimes Doing Nothing Is the Best Reaction,” “Many Important Decisions Are Not Made by Generals,” and numerous others.
In May 2014, the Army and USMC released the next and still current joint edition of FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5, now retitled Insurgencies and Countering Insurgencies, which builds on the 2006 version and casts counterinsurgency within the larger context of a range of military operations.
By TRADOC Military History and Heritage Office
OPEN FOR SUBMISSION! The 10th Annual MG Harold J. “Harry” Greene Awards for Acquisition Writing. Prospective authors may submit articles, opinion pieces or essays from 500 to 1,800 words in one of the following four categories: acquisition reform, future operations, innovation, or lessons learned.
The winning items and honorable mentions will be published in a supplement accompanying the spring edition of Army AL&T Magazine, and the authors will be honored at the Army Acquisition Executive’s Excellence in Leadership Awards Ceremony in Washington, D.C., at a date to be determined.
Submissions must be unclassified, original and not previously published or submitted to a writing competition. All entries must be submitted by email no later than midnight Oct. 2, 2023. Additional information about the competition is available at www.army.mil/asaalt, including the call for submissions and previous Army AL&T supplements.
The annual acquisition writing competition is named in honor of Maj. Gen. Harold Greene, who was killed during a visit to Marshal Fahim National Defense University in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 5, 2014, while serving as the deputy commanding general of the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan.
More info at api.army.mil/e2/c/downloads/2023/06/30/c13444db/2023-writing-award-call-for-submissions.
Via Silver Oak Leaf
(Photo Credit: Photo by Doug Ware, Courtesy of Stars and Stripes, all rights reserved)
WASHINGTON — On July 1, 2023, the U.S. Army and the nation celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the all-volunteer force. For half a century, the call to serve has been answered with Americans making the choice to represent the highest ideals of service and patriotism through military service.
“This year is the 50th anniversary of the all-volunteer force,” said Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth during the Army’s Birthday Festival. “That is 50 years of selfless service, 50 years of Soldiers from all walks of life volunteering to realize their potential, 50 years of Soldiers being all they can be.”
In 1973, the Nixon administration announced the U.S. military would fill its ranks exclusively with Americans that made the choice to serve rather than with draftees. Prior to 1973’s all-volunteer force, a near-continuous conscription began with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s activation of the nation’s first peacetime draft in support of World War II. That first draft, between November 1940 and October 1946, enlisted over 10 million Americans. The draft was again re-adopted in 1948 and continued to exist until it was officially halted on July 1, 1973.
(Photo Credit: Photo by Warren Leffler, courtesy of the Library of Congress)
The Army started working on developing the all-volunteer force well before the draft ended. According to Nicholas Torre, an Army Historian with the U.S. Army Center of Military History, in April 1971, a transitionary program called VOLAR, named for the new Volunteer Army Program, was successfully implemented at select bases. VOLAR was an experiment designed to increase retention rates and morale among Soldiers and to attract those who wanted to serve. The results were promising. For example, reforms at Fort Carson that aligned with the principles of VOLAR resulted in a 45% increase of reenlistments.
“VOLAR and accompanying initiatives sought to rectify the ills of the Vietnam-era draft-dependent Army,” said Torre. The Army wanted to find ways to increase discipline and morale as it moved towards an all-volunteer force. That included improving work environments by focusing on three areas: Army professionalism, day-to-day quality of life and addressing contextual social problems like race-related and drug abuse issues. Today, at the close of the Global War on Terror and with recruitment presenting challenges, there are parallels shared between the inception of the all-volunteer force and the present state. For instance, the U.S. Army’s continues to be a diverse force and a place for equal pay and treatment.
“Our Soldiers, from the newest E-1 to the most experienced generals come from all over the country, from many different backgrounds, from multiple demographics, races and ethnicities. And while our Soldiers are as diverse as the nation they serve, we have seen throughout our history that we are strongest when we serve together. At the end of the day, what unites us is our shared Army values. That and our collective mission to fight and win the nation’s wars,” said Wormuth.
Our diverse force continues to be united by a common mission, but the U.S. Army has also evolved over the last 50 years. Under the draft system, draftees usually served for two years. Today enlistments vary depending on each Soldier’s training and career path. Today’s Army offers more complex education and training for over 200 career paths. New innovations in training such as the Holistic Health and Fitness, new approaches towards mental readiness, sleep readiness, physical readiness and spiritual readiness are telling of how today’s Army is prioritizing setting up Soldiers for readiness and success.
“No other organization can bring out the best in people like the United States Army,” Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army Gen. James C. McConville remarked at the Army’s Birthday Festival.
Wormuth succinctly expressed what’s at the core of encouraging and celebrating Americans who choose to serve in an Army of possibilities, “The strength of our total Army has always been and will always be, our people.”
By Corinne Dionisio
ARLINGTON, Va. (AFNS) —
The U.S. Air Force is implementing standardized A-Staffs for air expeditionary wings to support commanders, maximize responsiveness in crisis and ease integration with joint force elements.
As part of the new Air Force Force Generation, or AFFORGEN, deployment model, presenting forces via the AEW A-Staff structure will increase a wing’s capacity to plan, coordinate and communicate vertically and horizontally to meet commander’s intent.
The AEW A-Staff is a standardized organizational structure, representing the following Air Force functions: A1 Manpower, Personnel, and Services; A2, Intelligence; A3, Operations; A4, Logistics and Engineering; A5, Plans and Integration; and A6, Communications.
“A successful A-Staff will make a commander’s job easier and take the burden of staffing responsibilities off our units,” said Lt. Gen. James Slife, deputy chief of staff for operations, Headquarters U.S. Air Force. “This means our units can better focus on mission execution instead of staff work.”
An AEW A-Staff is responsible for informing and implementing the wing commander’s decisions while communicating with higher and lateral headquarters, including joint partners who already use similarly organized headquarters while promoting the professional development of assigned staff.
Some personnel and staff functions at the squadron level will be realigned to the AEW A-Staff to support commanders with cross-functional capabilities intended to further enable the Air Force for high-end readiness against a competitive pacing challenge.
Airmen assigned to AEW A-staff roles will not dual-hat responsibilities from the squadron level, and commanders will not be utilized to fill staff roles.
“This is a necessary developmental opportunity for our young officers and senior NCOs,” Slife said. “Being a part of an A-staff will prepare Airmen earlier in their careers for their strategic role in informing the decisions of our Air Force leaders.”
While the AEW A-Staff implementation will inform the enterprise-wide expansion, the complexity of the task necessitates a methodical approach and remains a longer-term effort. Once AEW A-staff implementation is complete, Headquarters Air Force will focus on designing and implementing A-Staffs across all U.S. Air Force wings.
Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs
WASHINGTON — The Army rolled out its new Army Body Composition Program Monday that outlines a more accurate way to assess Soldiers’ body fat.
At a recent event, Sgt. Maj. Christopher P. Stevens, Army G-1 personnel sergeant major, and Holly McClung, lead researcher for the body composition study at the Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, talked about the roll out of the new program in detail.
“For years, we have been committed to reducing body fat across the force. It’s one of the driving factors in supporting the holistic health and fitness program, as well as one of the reasons to request a study on the Army Body Composition Program,” said Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael A. Grinston in a prepared statement. “As we got feedback from the study, we found there were ways to modernize the ABCP and better uphold the standards established in the regulations. As we implement these policies, performance on the [Army Combat Fitness Test] will increase while body fat decreases at a scale never before seen in our Army.”
The new changes, which also apply to Army National Guard and Army Reserve, replace the older method of measurement with a one-site tape test that is one measurement across the belly button. The previous test had two measurements across the belly and the neck.
“This new tape test requires taping only at one site, and the use of a corresponding calculation model for all Soldiers,” Stevens said. “[The] height and weight screening table remains the first line of assessment so no change to that.”
“From the clinical application in the medical world, a waist circumference, abdominal around your belly button, is linked to long-term health outcomes,” McClung said. “Not only are we looking at the performance of the Soldier today, but the long-term health of the Soldier in years to come within the Army.”
As far as those who are unable to pass, the Army has methods in place that assist Soldiers with a path to a healthier lifestyle and, hopefully, will bring them up to standard.
“We want to help them, we want to put them on a health promotion track, work with some dietitians and some trainers and bring them up to standard,” McClung said. “It’s making sure that we’re helping our Soldiers today, as well as in the long run.”
With the older method, it was found that some Soldiers were passing when they should have failed, and some would fail when they should have passed, McClung said.
“That’s why as a team, the policy working group came up with the three different methods, so that we could pull out those top performers that maybe were failing,” McClung said.
Like the previous test, Soldiers who fail the height and weight will need to take the new standards test. Soldiers who fail the first taping method can use the previous taping method as confirmation until June 12, 2024, as the new method is phased in. After failing those tests, the Soldier will be flagged, which can negatively impact their career.
If the Soldier fails both of those versions of the tape test, they can request, if reasonably available, supplemental assessment with the Dual X-ray Absorptiometry, InBody 770 or Bod Pod. These three devices are an advanced way to measure body fat composition.
“What’s going to stay in place when it comes to profession in the Army Body Composition Program is weight loss,” Stevens said.
These changes were made based on extensive research. The Army-wide study, which the ABCP is based on, was completed earlier this year, and evaluated the effectiveness of the new test on more than 2,600 Soldiers.
“We were hearing a lot from Soldiers in listening sessions and other forums who were concerned with the ACFT,” McClung said. “One of the main outcomes of this study was the first time that the Army has actually linked physical performance to body composition.”
The Army will continue to use the data from the study to make modifications to the program if necessary.
“This new policy will increase the readiness of the force by giving every Soldier a more accurate assessment of their health and fitness,” Stevens said. “The overall focus of the program is to have an effective and accurate assessment of the holistic health and fitness of the force, while at the same time providing Soldiers with the resources they need to improve and preserve individual and unit readiness.”
By SFC Michael Reinsch, Army News Service
