Secretary of the Army Francis J. Harvey, alongside Fort Huachuca Commander Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, answers questions from the media during his first visit to the historic post. (Ed Honda-Herald/Review)
Posted on 01/12/2007 5:51:49 PM PST by SandRat
Secretary of the Army Francis J. Harvey, alongside Fort Huachuca Commander Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, answers questions from the media during his first visit to the historic post. (Ed Honda-Herald/Review)
Herald/Review
FORT HUACHUCA -- The Army’s plan to add more soldiers likely will mean the Intelligence Center will be doing more training, the secretary of the Army said Thursday.
Francis J. Harvey said it also will be critical for the Army to have combat support functions integrated into the additional brigade combat teams. Those units will require intelligence, military police, engineers and other functions.
Harvey made his comments at a press conference just before leaving the post after arriving for his first visit to the fort that began noon Wednesday and ended around 3 p.m. Thursday.
The fort is an important installation because of intelligence training and a strong Signal Corps presence with the Network Enterprise Technology Command, Harvey said.
Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, the center’s and fort’s commander, and Col. Jeff Smith, deputy commander of NETCOM, who is on the brigadier general promotion list, flanked Harvey at the press conference.
Fast said intelligence training has increased on the post.
As for future brigade combat teams, “there will be a need for a military intelligence company (for each one),” she said.
The Intelligence Center is providing trained soldiers for existing teams, and Fast said she sees “a mirror of what we have today.”
Harvey said a temporary increase of 30,000 soldiers, which Congress has authorized, will become permanent, and another 35,000 will be added at 7,000 a year for the next five years, bringing the active duty strength up to 547,000.
“It’s absolutely required to fight the global war on terrorism,” he said
The Army was already growing from 33 to 42 brigade combat teams. The additional number of soldiers will add another five of six of the units.
Fast said there will be “a surge in training (on the fort), but the details still have to worked out.”
Harvey said it is too early to tell if the fort will be tasked to accept new units.
Noting there have been reductions in Army installations due to the last Base Realignment and Closure Commission decisions, coupled with having units return to the United States from Europe and other overseas areas, he said there is a great deal of construction going on at installations such as Fort Bliss and Fort Hood, both in Texas; Fort Knox, Ky.; and other stateside sites to absorb the additional soldiers and their families.
Other impacts the increase will have is unknown, the Army secretary said.
How Congress will fund the personnel increases and provide money for additional infrastructure also must be considered, Harvey said.
The Army constantly reviews how to place units with the increase that is already happening. It will not be known for some time which installations may grow, he said.
Although neither he nor Fast addressed it, the fort has a major environmental issue hanging over its head. Environmentalists have been adamant about not adding any new units. In fact, some want the Army’s presence on the post reduced or eliminated to ensure the San Pedro River survives. The river is a national and global waterway for birds, mammals and other species.
The post is in the process of revising a biological opinion with the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service to determine exactly how much of an impact the installation has on the river.
The fort is a founding member of the Upper San Pedro Partnership, a consortium of federal, state and local agencies, as well as conservation organizations and local businesses.
While the fort and river problem is a concern to local people, Harvey has a larger view to look at ahead of him.
The health of the service’s National Guard and Reserves also are part of Harvey’s bailiwick.
Deployments to places such as Iraq and Afghanistan of all the Army’s assets are taking a toll on the soldiers and their families, he said.
Policy changes are planned to help the reserve components deploy as units, not as individuals, the Army secretary said. Unit cohesion is important, and long-term relationship and leadership within the reserve components are better used if such organizations deploy as a group.
Future deployments will be for a year, not 18 months as is currently set. The National Guard and Reserve units may only have “boots on the ground of nine months,” Harvey said. The other three months will be used for preparing a unit to deploy and return.
And, generally, most of the units will deploy for a year and have five years at home, Harvey said. As for active-duty units, there will be one year deployments and two years at home.
Harvey admitted it will take a little time for the changes to be made.
As for his visit to the fort, the Army secretary said he learned a great deal about the importance of the missions being accomplished on the post.
He noted that some of the most deployed people are Signal Corps soldiers, many of whom are NETCOM assets. The post’s 11th Signal Brigade has the 86th Signal Battalion currently deployed to Iraq, and it is expected the remainder of the brigade will deploy to that nation later this year.
Without communications, soldiers are not able to do their jobs, Harvey said.
And without intelligence, Army leadership would suffer from a lack of critical information of what is facing them during deployments.
“Actionable intelligence is more important than its ever been,” Harvey said.
The trip also brought a sense of realism to him. That came from the young soldiers who are training at the Intelligence Center or assigned to other functions such as the Signal Corps.
“Soldiers tell it like it is,” Harvey said.
HERALD/REVIEW senior reporter Bill Hess can be reached at 515-4615.
SEC ARMY at Ft Huachuca, Arizona
I would suspect these trainers will be getting busy.
By the way, it is noted that he isn't visiting Ft. Carson where it will be -5 tonight ;-)
The 'classrooms' were all condemned WWII barracks. We didn't even have enough rounds for all the MIOBC students to qualify and the front sight of my rifle fell off at the range. All the old civilian trainers and analysts had been there fighting the Fulda gap back and forth for 40 years.
I was going to Korea and got a 4 hour block of instruction on it. It was just after Desert Storm and we had zero (0) courses or classes on the Middle East--just fighting the Fulda Gap back and forth and back and forth.
I guess this is good what they are doing, but it's about 10 years too late.
I sure could tell you some political stories about Huachuca! To be nice, we had an MI computer fielded in Korea that several were tasked to learn to use and sure enough, all that was in there was the Fulda Gap training load!
Oh, yes.... The Maneuver Control System. What a 500lb hunk of crap. The modem weighed 210lbs!
All of the maps included were of Germany. The screen was wider than it was tall so that always had to load more maps if you are fighting N/S instead of E/W. Loading new maps took 3 hours....
We were never able to get it to successfully transmit by SINCGARS.... I hated that piece of shit! Hated it!
Things have changed quite a bit.
MCS is still with us, but I doubt you'd recognize it now.
And most all systems are now laptop based.
Hopefully they're not still fighting the Fulda Gap at MIOBC.
One of the dopiest and surreal statements I've ever heard:
"Well, the Soviet Union fell while you guys were on FTX. You missed it. The test on Soviet Order of Battle is Monday."
Thanks for the ping.
ASA VET, there are some interesting comments/replies on this thread.
Thanks Dave, I sent two list invites.
Good Morning Bob.
I thought there might be some gold and silver to be panned from the replies.
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