New Chief of Staff of the Army Comments (Notes)

A colleague had a chance to hear the new Chief of Staff of the Army (GEN Schoomaker, Shinseki's replacement) speak (I'm not sure of the forum). He summarized the talk into a memo, which was distributed to the chain. Sorry about some of the jargon. I don't know it all myself. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the review, other than to say the source is credible. So inaccuracies, if any, are mistranscriptions, and not fabrications.

1. He had no idea that he would be called back to service, and he thought the phone call asking him to come to Washington was a joke that a friend of his was playing. He does not know Sec Rumsfeld very well, he had no previous contacts with him before the call, and he was unaware of the details behind controversy surrounding Rumsfeld's relations with the former CSA. He knows now, of course.

2. He was picked because OSD felt that as a special operator with a heavy joint warfighting background, he would be the best possible person to break Army stereotypes, stovepipes, branch parochialism, opposition to expeditionary operations in a joint-coalition environment, and an underlying hesitancy to do anything other than fight major wars. His charter from the SecDef was to make the Army "relevant and ready." The days of Army foot-dragging when ordered to execute tasks it didn't like are over.

3. The byword will be, "what's good for the nation, is good for the Army." The attitude that says, "What's good for the Army is good for the nation" is dead.

4. The DAMPL (DA military priority list?) is out. There are no more CAT 1 or CAT 2 units. Only those that are deploying to an operation and those that are not. Priority of support will go to units heading to operations. One of the reasons the 507th Maint Co got lost and ambushed was because it deployed without any of the equipment that first line combat units did. The days of the "haves" and "have nots" in the active force must end.

5. We are going to re-look our organizations. The Army is going to have to figure out how to reorganize its structures so that we can deploy something other than light infantry brigades to a fight in 24 hours. The CG, 24 ID has been tasked to figure out how to create five brigades with all the enablers found at division/corps from his current organization. These may be smaller brigade-like units, but they will include all the functional capabilities found in a division.

6. The division HQ as we know it may be gone. What will probably develop in its place is a modular command and control structure capable of operating as a division, JTF, CJTF or other expeditionary, task-oriented headquarters.

7. The terms legacy force, interim force and objective force are out. Stop using them. There's only the current Army and the future Army. The one will evolve into the other, as it has since time immemorial. And the M1A2 tank will be with the force until at least 2025.

8. The Army is a critical component of the joint team. We will aggressively seek to put Army guys in joint warfighting slots. Any Army leader who balks, drags his feet, or complains about working in a joint or coalition environment will be fired. The days when an Army component commander will go behind the back of his combatant commander and complain to the CSA about his treatment are over. Any commander who tries to defy his combatant commander, whomever or whatever he may be, will be fired.

9. We must re-look Army Aviation - its equipment, tactics manning, etc - and be truly honest about its capabilities before we fly helicopters over any more heavily defended positions without combined arms and joint support.

10. We may go to a system of unit manning versus individual replacement. This is not the cohort revisited. It is the wholesale moving of units between headquarters on a grand, scheduled basis. We're not going to DEROS people, but units. Even so, a soldier will have to expect to be deployed for one year out of a three year tour.

11. We're getting out of the installation management business. Real estate companies take better care of on-post housing and facilities better and more professionally than any housing office, anyway.

"Well I was with you there until you called F-16 pilots cowards. I assume you know Air Force pilots transition from one aircraft to another, sometimes several times in a career? An F-16 pilot today may be a warthog driver tomorrow and vice versa. If you were trying to make a point you blew it pal."

I KNOW a bunch of F-16 pilots. Not ONE of them would get down and dirty and not one of them has ever flown a Warthog.

Having been on the ground and in need of CAS, I can tell you that the line of preference is Marine Aviation (great!), Naval Aviation (okay), and then the horrible, awful, cowardly USF who flies way overhead and drops a few bombs semi-randomly and then quickly flies off. The USAF *HATES* ground support and essentially refuses to do it. The only exception is the tiny number of Warthog guys, and the USAF hates both them and the Warthog.

I have friends and relatives in the USAF. One of my friends and one of my nephews are serving USAF officers with fighter squadrons. I know these people. I have been in the dirt under heavy fire while they flew happily away and left us there. Contrast that with Marine Aviaition, who gets down low and fights like Hell for their brothers on the ground. A Marine pilot in a bar will be bought drinks all night long by his ground-pounding brethren for whom he has put his life on the line; a USAF pilot in the same bar had better watch out, because we know just what he is. The contempt for them knows no bounds.

"What happens when the grunts have no artillery and the USAF won't give them *danger close* support in populated areas?"

Easy one. The grunts take unnecessary casualties and they learn to hate the Air Force with a passion.

Watching people get nailed because the USAF pilot overhead wet his pants and flew back to his hot dinner and his air-conditioned quarters rather than actually get take a risk and provide the close air support that was his job makes for very resentful ground-pounders.

Marine aviators, on the other hand, are loved and respected because they put it all on the line whenever they need to. Nobody does CAS better.

We must re-look Army Aviation - its equipment, tactics manning, etc - and be truly honest about its capabilities before we fly helicopters over any more heavily defended positions without combined arms and joint support

Let me hear and AMEN!

AMEN!!

"Breaking Right"

The housing business is humorous. The army has long hated having to manage on-post housing. Why haven't they changed it? Because there's a whole civilian government jobs system built in support of it. Everytime it's tried to change, the gov unions and politicians get called into it, and then the initiative dies.

If Rumsfeld leaves after Bush's first term, the civilians will outlast this one, and it will not change

Actually, it's already in the midst of changing over to contracted support, as are many support roles in DoD.

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