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STATEMENT
BY
STATEMENT
OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL THOMAS J. PLEWES
CHIEF,
ARMY RESERVE
ARMY
RESERVE OVERVIEW
DEPARTMENT
OF THE ARMY
JULY
18, 2001
INTRODUCTION
Mr. Chairman, members of this
committee, thank you for the opportunity to
testify on behalf of the nearly 360,000 men
and women serving in Army Reserve units and as
individual mobilization assets—all soldiers
of The Army. The United States Army Reserve,
now 93 years young, enters the first century
of the new millennium as an indispensable and
strategically responsive force, an essential
component of The Army.
The opportunity to testify before this
subcommittee comes at a time of new challenges
in which we are transforming our force in
support of the Chief of Staff of the Army’s
Vision. The Army Reserve is no longer a force
in reserve; it is integral to all Army
operations today.
Our task through the next decade is to
remain flexible and responsive to the needs of
our Army.
"We Can Do!'
At the outset, I wish to convey my
sincere appreciation to this subcommittee for
its sustained, consistent, strong support of
citizen-soldiers.
Providing the opportunity to discuss
the challenges we are faced with is another
demonstration of your concern for our Reserve
forces and how well they can fulfill the
missions assigned to them.
The
Army Reserve, the Army National Guard and the
Active Army are full
partners
in the fully focused American Force that is
the most responsive
ground
combat force in the world. Wherever the Army has gone, so has the Army Reserve.
Wherever the Army is, so are we.
This is not rhetoric but plain truth:
the U.S. Army today cannot perform its
missions or meet its mission goals without the
Army Reserve.
We are being utilized more frequently
than ever before, an indispensable Army
partner, a new Army Reserve — one
increasingly committed to our national defense
in several important ways.
The
scope and variety of Army Reserve activities
illustrate the frequency that the Army Reserve
is called upon as part of the Army in
answering the nation's needs.
Army Reserve soldiers continue to take
part in every kind of mission we face at the
beginning of the new century.
These missions range from combat
operations to peacekeeping, from disaster
relief to major training events, both at home
and abroad.
We support communities as a hometown
organization. We honor our past, but
constantly prepare ourselves for the future.
The Army Reserve has played a vital
Army role from major theater war to training
the entire force.
Army Reserve soldiers supported NATO
operations in the former Republic of
Yugoslavia and continue to support
peacekeeping operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, and
Southwest Asia.
Additionally, Army Reserve civil
affairs and logistics soldiers have even
supported the U.S. mission in East Timor.
The
Army Reserve’s key challenges are the same
as the rest of the Army — provide trained
and ready units and soldiers.
In order for the Army Reserve to
maintain its many capabilities and continue to
meet the requirements of the National Military
Strategy, your continued support is vital to
secure critical resources for full-time
support manpower, recruiting and retention,
equipment procurement and modernization,
information technology, and facility
revitalization.
PEOPLE
Equal
Opportunity
The
Army Reserve is rich in diversity and gender
mix. It’s
the nation's most culturally diverse and
upwardly mobile reserve force in the military
today. Minorities
represent 40% of the soldiers in the Army
Reserve, and they have, on their own merits,
been promoted into the highest enlisted and
commissioned officer ranks. This also holds true for women, which comprise 24% of reserve
strength.
Other impressive data include the facts
that 57% of all the Black officers, 42% of all
the Asians officers, and 39% of all the
Hispanic officers in all the Reserve
Components in DoD are in the Army Reserve.
Our high minority population thrives in
an environment that promotes the basic
concepts of treating others with “Dignity
and Respect”.
Our Equal Opportunity programs are well
resourced.
The return on that investment is
handsomely represented in a force rich in
cultural, ethnic and gender diversity.
RECRUITING AND RETENTION
An area of highest importance to the
Army Reserve is recruiting and retention.
The Army Reserve is a major participant
in supporting and training a 21st century
Army. This
requires the best soldiers America can
provide.
In this regard, we are most
appreciative of the help your committee has
provided us.
We certainly would be remiss if we did
not thank you for the attention you have paid
to our recruiting needs in recent legislation.
With your help we were, for the first
time in several years, able to meet our
recruiting mission
in FY 2000, and at the mid-year point
of FY 2001, we have exceeded our mission.
The
Army Reserve, in partnership with the United
States Army Recruiting Command (USAREC),
recently conducted a thorough review of Army
Reserve Recruiting.
This review has helped us forge a
stronger relationship with the Recruiting
Command and has streamlined our processes to
support the symbiotic relationship between
recruiting and retention.
To that end, we are doing the
following:
-
We are seeking to ensure that all Army
Reserve soldiers are involved in recruiting
and retention activities- we all are a part of
the Army's recruiting efforts.
-
We are removing mission distracters
allowing the Recruiting Command to focus on
their core competency of recruiting non-prior
service applicants.
-
We are focusing on life cycle personnel
management for all categories of Army Reserve
soldiers, troop unit members, and soldiers in
the Individual Ready Reserve.
We are ensuring that career counselors
talk to Army Reservists about joining the
Active Guard Reserve (AGR) program, training
to become Warrant Officers, or Commissioned
Officers, and we are sharing opportunities
available in our troop units.
-
Our retention program seeks to reduce
attrition, thereby improving readiness and
reducing recruiting missions.
-
And we are jointly working with the
Recruiting Command to ensure AGR personnel
assigned to that command are given leadership
and professional growth opportunities.
This fiscal year we commenced these
activities by transferring responsibility for
the prior service mission from the Recruiting
Command to the Army Reserve.
This transition will occur in a phased
process that culminates in FY 03.
Tenets of this transfer include:
establishment of career crosswalk
opportunities between recruiters and retention
transition NCOs; localized recruiting ,
retention and transition support at Army
Reserve units and increased commander
awareness and involvement in recruiting and
retention efforts.
We expect to reduce attrition and
improve recruiting efforts by reducing
no-shows to initial active duty training,
highlighting all Army Reserve personnel life
cycle opportunities and improving delivery of
recruiting promises.
In Phase I of the prior service mission
transition, we transferred 61 recruiters from
USAREC and assigned them to Reserve Centers
within the southeastern United States and
Puerto Rico.
The assignment of new Retention NCOs
will allow the Army Reserve to lower its
attrition significantly and to ensure prior
service soldiers are provided opportunities in
our units, and assist our commanders in
delivering recruiting promises.
With the beginning of Phase II, the
total Army Reserve
Retention and Transition Division (RTD)
mission will increase to 10,000 prior service
transfers.
We will continue extensive
collaboration with USAREC to ensure a smooth
transition of these responsibilities.
To support these efforts, the Army
Reserve uses the non-prior service and prior
service enlistment bonuses, the Montgomery GI
Bill (MGIB) Kicker and the Student Loan
Repayment Program in combinations to attract
soldiers to fill critical MOS and priority
unit shortages.
Program funding must be sufficient to
attract and retain both prior and non-prior
service soldiers.
The Army Reserve must be able to
provide a variety of enlistment and retention
incentives, for both officer and enlisted
personnel, in order to attract and retain
quality soldiers.
Our new retention program is a success.
Faced with an enlisted attrition rate
of 37.5 percent at the end of FY 1997, we
adopted a corporate approach to retaining
quality soldiers.
Retention management was a staff
responsibility before FY 1998.
In a mostly mechanical approach to
personnel management, strength managers simply
calculated gains and losses and maintained
volumes of statistical data.
Unfortunately, this approach did
nothing to focus commanders on their
responsibility of retaining their most
precious resource — our soldiers.
To correct this shortcoming, the Army
Reserve developed the Commander’s Retention
Program. A crucial tenet of this program places responsibility and
accountability for retention with commanders
at every level of the organization.
Commanders now have a direct mission to
retain their soldiers and must develop annual
retention plans.
Additionally, first line leaders must
ensure all soldiers are sponsored, receive
delivery on promises made to them, and are
provided quality training.
In this way, the Commander’s
Retention Program ensures accountability
because it establishes methods and standards
and provides a means to measure and evaluate
every commander’s performance.
Since the introduction of the
Commander’s Retention Program, the Army
Reserve has reduced enlisted attrition by
nearly 5 percent.
The enlisted attrition rate in FY 2000
was 28.9 percent.
However, persistent pressure from
increased job market competition that is
intensified by a robust economy makes it
difficult to maintain this degree of improved
retention.
The Army Reserve also is experiencing a
company grade officer shortfall.
Retention goals focused commanders and
first line leaders on junior officers, as
well.
Our retention program seeks to reduce
attrition, thereby improving readiness and
reducing recruiting missions.
Our retention efforts bore fruit
earlier this year with a 1,200 non-prior
service recruit mission reduction to USAREC.
Given our current strength posture and
attrition outlook, another mission reduction
is being assessed.
The Army Reserve will successfully
accomplish its 43,000 recruiting mission for
FY 2001 while achieving the Department of the
Army and Department of Defense quality marks.
Next year our enlisted recruiting
mission will stabilize at about 42,000 due to
the success of our retention efforts.
The accomplishment of the recruiting
mission will demand a large investment in time
on the part of our commander’s, our
retention NCOs, and our recruiters as they are
personally involved in attracting the young
people in their communities to their units.
However, the same environmental
pressures that make non-prior service
recruiting and retention difficult affects
prior service accessions.
With the end of the defense drawdown we
have seen a corresponding decrease in the
available prior service market as reflected in
the IRR.
This has meant greater training costs,
due to the increased reliance on the non-prior
service market, and an overall loss of the
knowledge that comes when NCO leadership fails
to transition to the Army Reserve.
Consequently, the Army Reserve’s
future ability to recruit and retain quality
soldiers will be critically dependent on
maintaining competive compensation.
Additionally, the young people of today
need to be made aware of the unique
opportunities available in the different
military components.
The best way to get this message out is
to advertise through the mass media.
Special attention needs to be placed on
the recruiting budget, especially for
advertising, to meet our requirements in the
next several years.
Funding our critical advertising needs
is imperative if we are to be honestly
expected to meet our recruiting goals.
Your
continued support of our efforts to recruit
and retain quality soldiers remains essential
if we are to be successful.
READINESS
Over
84,000 Army Reserve soldiers mobilized and
served in Desert Storm.
We were ready then, and are ready
today. We
continue to improve Duty
Military Occupational Skill Qualification (DMOSQ).
The
Army Chief of Staff set a goal for the Reserve
Components to achieve and sustain an 85
percent DMOSQ and Professional Development (PDE)
qualification level by fiscal year 2005.
Recent increases in funding have raised
both DMOSQ and PDE qualification rates by
several percentage points.
The Army Reserve is projecting that
DMOSQ rates will climb to 85 percent by FY
2005 and NCOES qualification rates will
achieve 85 percent by FY 2004 due to
programmed increases to our funding level.
We also continue to aggressively
manage and monitor soldiers attending DMOSQ to
achieve this goal.
Your continued support of our mutual goal to have a trained and ready force
remains essential to our success.
The
Army Reserve’s readiness status continues to
improve.
As of April 2001, 76 percent of our
units meet deployment standards, a 9 percent
increase over the previous two years.
Our Force Support Package (FSP) units,
those which scheduled for early mobilization,
average 88 percent deployable readiness.
The Army Reserve continues to achieve a
high number of units rated deployable, despite
having the lowest level of full-time support
of any reserve component. Today’s readiness levels are a testimony to the Army
Reserve’s ability to adapt and succeed in
our assigned mission
RELEVANCE
As I testify today, we have nearly 800
Reserve soldiers supporting contingency
operations in Operations Joint Forge and Joint
Guardian (Bosnia and Kosovo) in the European
Theater, who are part of over 2,400 Army
Reserve soldiers supporting contingency
operations worldwide.
These Reservists comprise the latest
rotation in support of operations spanning
five years and totaling over 16,800 troops,
and we remain heavily employed. Overall in FY 2000 the Army Reserve deployed over
71,000 soldiers to 64 countries, and we
provided a total of 3.5 million mandays in the
United States and abroad.
Employments were worldwide from Central
America and Southwest Asia to places like East
Timor. Furthermore,
the Army Reserve did this at the same time
that it achieved its highest readiness status
in history.
Much of this achievement was the direct
result of your support to improve our
full-time manning and provide the funding
required for our operating tempo and training
requirements.
We
are a force sized and ready to fight
full-scale war as well as support smaller
scale contingencies.
We bring trained units who can get to
where they are needed quickly and then perform
as a seamless part of the Army team.
We bring professionals from the
civilian world, leaders and experts in many
fields, with skills and abilities the Army may
not have or cannot afford to develop or
sustain. We are as accessible as any component
of any service, ready to respond to the needs
of the National Command Authority.
The
Army Reserve continues to support Active Army
exercises, operations, and training worldwide.
Some of the major exercises and
training events supported included: BRIGHT
STAR, NEW HORIZONS, Operation JOINT GUARD,
Operation JOINT FORGE, and many National
Training Center/Joint Readiness Training
Center rotations.
For
the last year, Army Reservists have been
deployed simultaneously to two troubled parts
of the world, in Europe for Operation JOINT
FORGE (Bosnia) and JOINT GUARDIAN (Kosovo) and
in Southeast Asia for Operation STABLISE (East
Timor).
Worldwide
deployments are nothing new for the
soldiers of the Army Reserve.
Since 1995, more than 16,800 Army
Reservists have participated in Operations
JOINT ENDEAVOR, JOINT GUARD, and now JOINT
FORGE, either in Bosnia or in support
operations in neighboring countries, and in
Operation JOINT GUARDIAN in Kosovo.
The Army's reliance on the Army
Reserve's capabilities, especially in such
areas as civil affairs, medical, engineering,
logistics, transportation, military police,
postal, public affairs and psychological
operations, will ensure the Army Reserve will
be in the Balkans as long as the Army remains
there.
When not working alongside their active
Army, Army National Guard and sister services,
Army Reserve soldiers honed their
always-in-demand skills on exercises.
More than 2,000 soldiers from 46 units
took part in the annual TRANSLOTS exercise in
June, using landing craft to unload equipment
and then truck supplies to the "front
lines".
For the first time, this annual
transportation exercise was run in conjunction
with the annual ROVING SANDS exercise, a
joint-theater air and missile defense exercise
that involved more than 18,000 troops from
several nations. More than half of the units
for TRANSLOTS were from the Army Reserve, to
include the lead unit for the exercise, the
143rd Transportation Command from
Orlando, Fla.
Army Reserve units were also
significantly involved in ROVING SANDS.
Hundreds
of Army Reserve Military Police soldiers from
the 77th and 99th
Regional Support Commands trained to handle
enemy prisoners of war by setting up and
operating two internment facilities and a
corps level internment operation during
Exercise PLATINUM SWORD 2000 at the Army
Reserve installation at Fort Dix, N.J.
Prior to conducting this hands-on
exercise, the soldiers prepared with a
simulation exercise hosted by the Battle
Projection Group of the Army Reserve's 78th
Training Support Division.
All of the Army's
Internment/Resettlement brigades are Army
Reserve units.
Army
Reserve soldiers trained overseas, as well as
in the United States.
For the first time since 1995, U.S.
soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines returned
to the Philippines to conduct the BALIKATAN
exercise with the Philippine Armed Forces.
Army Reservists played key roles in
this exercise, to include an Army Reserve
officer serving as the U.S. co-exercise
director for the combined force.
As
has been demonstrated by our ever-present use
in operations and exercises, so, too, does the
Army Reserve's role in contributory support
demonstrate that the Army Reserve is no longer
a "for emergency use only"
organization.
We
are utilized in every way, contributing daily
to the Army.
This support reduces operational costs,
increases efficiency and provides excellent
production-based training opportunities.
Our soldiers benefit from this
contributory support by performing
challenging, time-sensitive missions.
Soldiers do not like make-work
missions.
They want to do something meaningful
something, which has a benefit and a purpose,
which offers a challenge.
We have moved from a training model of
"train, then do" to "train and
do."
Army Reserve soldiers rise to that
challenge constantly.
Army
Reserve Materiel Management Commands conduct
year-round resupply operations for active Army
units in Southwest Asia and the National
Training Center in California.
Army Reserve intelligence centers at
Fort Gillem, Ga., and Fort Sheridan, Ill.,
provide strategic analysis for the Army on a
full-time basis.
This seamless support of real-world
missions clearly demonstrates how effectively
Army Reserve units integrate into the Army.
Contributory
support helps the Army focus its active forces
on their primary warfighting tasks.
Another way we help the Army
concentrate on warfighting is in our core
competency of training.
Through focus on our part of the
training function, we help the Army return
soldiers to combat divisions.
Army Reserve soldiers are fully
integrated into every aspect of training.
Our soldiers provide quality training
to soldiers and units from all components.
Army
Reserve Institutional Training Divisions
provide skill, leadership, and professional
development training.
They also provide basic combat and one
station unit training at Army Training
Centers.
Army Reserve Training Support Divisions
provide collective lanes and simulation
training to units of all three Army
components.
The
Army Reserve Readiness Training Center (ARRTC)
at Fort McCoy, Wis., which provides a myriad
of training support to all components of the
Army, is developing a well-earned reputation
as a center of training innovation.
Army Reserve, as well as Army National
Guard and Active Component soldiers, can now
graduate from a Military Occupational Skill
(MOS) producing school by taking an
interactive, distance-learning course,
developed and taught by ARRTC, using
off-the-shelf civilian equipment.
Another innovation at ARRTC is the
mirror site classroom (so-called because it
"mirrors" the training offered at
the Army Computer Science School at Fort
Gordon, Ga.) used to provide security
certification instruction to information
system administrators.
ARRTC conducts this training with a
ground-breaking single classroom set-up, using
a single set of computers, thus saving scarce
resources and serving as a model for future
planned mirror sites.
The Army Reserve is well placed to
benefit the Army in finding innovative ways to
do business because of the civilian acquired
skills of our soldiers.
Our soldiers bring their civilian
acquired skills, talents and experience with
them.
This has been true from the beginning
of the Army Reserve:
the very first Reservists were civilian
doctors who could be called up in time of
emergency.
Civilian technological advances are
taking place at a dramatic pace.
Army Reserve soldiers who take part in
these advances in their civilian jobs are
ideally placed to bring them into the Army for
its benefit.
To better capitalize on the
"citizen" part of
"citizen-soldier", the Army Reserve
is collecting information on the civilian
skills of its soldiers, skills acquired
outside the Army and thus perhaps unknown to
it.
Army Reservists can now input those
skills into the Civilian Acquired Skills
Database (CASDB) at the Army Reserve Personnel
Command (AR-PERSCOM).
By going to the website at www.citizen-soldier-skills.com,
soldiers can enter those skills they obtained
from civilian training or work experience.
Soldiers who volunteer to register
their civilian acquired skills are afforded
the opportunity to serve in duties outside of
their traditional branch or MOS. CASDB gives commanders at all levels the means to identify
those soldiers with specific skills to meet
special needs. Those skills and talents can then be used to benefit
the Army Reserve, the Army and the nation.
Using our skills in the information
area is one part of our strategy for assisting
the Army to become a more strategically
deployable and responsive force.
By leveraging advanced communications
and information technology, we can conduct
split-based support operations.
Army Reserve units can operate from
home station to accomplish missions in forward
locations utilizing this technology, thus
reducing lift requirements. We are evolving our support organizations to build a
reach-back capability for logistics,
intelligence, and training support, thereby
reducing the deployed logistical footprint.
We
will also reduce lift requirements by
strategically stationing Army Reserve
equipment and forces, capitalizing on our
forward-stationed Reserve units and soldiers,
such as the 7th Army Reserve Command in Europe
and the 9th Regional Support Command in the
Pacific.
Since
Army Reserve power projection units have key
roles in moving the Army overseas and
receiving deployed units once they arrive, it
is vital we get our own equipment -- that not
already strategically positioned -- overseas
quickly.
An innovation now underway to better
facilitate deployment response times is the
Strategic Storage Site (SSS) Initiative.
Our goal is to maintain 37 percent of our equipment in these
sites. Besides
improving equipment readiness and maintenance
operations, this equipment, located at
strategic ports around the country, will be
immediately ready for deployment.
The initial Strategic Storage Site is a
150,000 square foot facility at Gulfport,
Miss. Six to seven SSS facilities are planned.
Consequence
Management
The
Army Reserve is ready to answer our Nation's
call at home, too. Should terrorists strike the American homeland, Army
Reserve units and soldiers, possessing a
variety of capabilities, would be immediately
available.
These units include chemical detection
and reconnaissance companies and medical and
medical support organizations, all ready to
support civil authorities should disaster
strike. As
should be expected, we train for this
worst-case eventuality diligently.
One such training exercise involving
Army Reserve units, the Air Force Reserve,
other Defense Department and U.S. agencies, as
well as state and local agencies, was
CONSEQUENCE MANAGEMENT 2000, held last May at
the Regional Training Site - Medical at Fort
Gordon, Ga.
The
Army Reserve is ideally placed for civil
support.
Our units are stationed in Hometown,
U.S.A., with our soldiers located in 1,200
Army Reserve Centers in towns and cities all
across America, putting the Army's footprint
in every part of our country.
They are part of America's communities
because those communities are their
communities. Our soldiers are the local doctors, nurses, teachers,
lawyers, police officers, Little League
coaches and soccer moms and dads, who enable
the Army Reserve to respond with a
multi-faceted capability.
We provide key emergency preparedness
leaders.
Army Reserve Civil Affairs units
contain 97 percent of the Army’s expertise
to rebuild shattered infrastructure—social,
civil and physical.
Military Police units can shelter up to
56,000 displaced persons.
The Army Reserve, ready to respond to a
chemical incident, contains 63 percent of the
Army’s chemical capability.
Today, the Army Reserve has the largest
chemical decontamination capability within DoD.
The Army Reserve is currently training 100 out
of a total of 127 decontamination platoons and
8 of the 15 reconnaissance platoons called for
in Defense Reform Initiative Directive 25.
Our
medical professionals are working closely in
DoD and among the interagency community to
leverage our capabilities in Weapons of Mass
Destruction (WMD) Consequence Management.
Residing within the Army Reserve are 68
percent of the Army’s medical assets.
The Army Reserve contains 50 percent of
resourced Mortuary Affairs units, as well as
Aviation, Logistics, Engineer and Signal
units, which are essential capabilities for
WMD Consequence Management.
The Army Reserve stands ready to
support WMD Consequence Management operations
in combat, in the homeland or overseas in
support of our coalition partners.
The
challenge of defending America’s Homeland
continues to grow. Although the Army Reserve is not a “first responder”
organization, it is ready to provide
assistance to support and sustain those
organizations that do respond first. The Civil
Support mission requires capabilities resident
in the Army Reserve.
Civil
Support and Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)
operations are combat support and combat
service support intensive. Army Reserve core
capabilities enable the Army to provide rapid
support that complements the Federal response
that sustains local responders.
As
a community-based force, the Army Reserve is
– by definition – America’s people.
We are a reflection of the values and
traditions embodied in our culture.
Those values and traditions are what
make the Army Reserve, the National Guard and
the Army strong, able to meet the Nation's
missions for the past 225 years and continuing
into the new millennium.
The men and women of the Army Reserve,
all of whom volunteered to be "twice the
citizen", have taken on the sacrifices to
serve the Nation.
In their hands is the future of the
Army Reserve.
Information
Operations
We
use Information Operations (IO) to defend our
own information and information systems while
disrupting those of the enemy.
IO ensures that our leaders have the
information they need, when they need it, in a
form they can use to win the fight and protect
America's vital interests.
These
are not new concepts.
The Army has long understood the
importance of controlling the decision cycle.
Units with IO capabilities that
intercept or interrupt communications, that
collect and analyze information about the
battlefield and that influence the attitudes
and will of the opposition, are a legacy in
the Army Reserve structure.
The Army Reserve provides a wide
variety of experts who accomplish missions,
such as Civil Affairs, Psychological
Operations, Public Affairs, Military
Intelligence and Signal.
The Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA),
the National Ground Intelligence Center and
the Joint Reserve Intelligence Program now are
utilizing Army Reserve units, facilities and
personnel to conduct Information Operations.
The
Army Reserve also is building additional
capability to reinforce Army information and
LIWA operations. The Army Reserve Land Information Warfare Enhancement Center
directly expands the scope and sophistication
of LIWA information capabilities.
When complete, one fifth of LIWA
manpower will be Army Reserve soldiers. The Defense Information Systems Agency has created a
22-member Joint Web Risk Assessment Cell.
This cell will monitor and evaluate
Department of Defense web sites to ensure no
one compromises national security by revealing
sensitive defense information.
Five members of this cell, whose
civilian skills are particularly suited to
this hard skill requirement, are Drilling
Individual Mobilization Augmentees of the Army
Reserve.
Further,
the Army Reserve is actively carving its niche
in this evolving area of cyber warfare by
creating the Reserve Information Operations
Structure.
This organization will be activated to
provide contributory support to the Army’s
Computer Network Defense and information
assurance efforts.
Army Reserve Information Operation
Centers (IOCs) identify and respond to viruses
and intruders in Army computer networks.
Currently, Army Reserve IOCs are forming in
the National Capital Region, Massachusetts,
Pennsylvania, California, and Texas, and
satellite units can be found in over a dozen
large cities.
Information Operations support the Army’s portion of the Defense
Information Infrastructure to ensure the
availability, integrity and confidentiality of
information systems.
Counter
Drug Operations
The Army Reserve provides intelligence,
linguistic, transportation, maintenance, and
engineer support to drug law enforcement
agencies and unified commanders-in-chief in an
ongoing program in effect since 1989.
The Army Reserve supports local, state
and federal law enforcement agencies in
operations designed to reduce the flow of
illegal drugs both within and outside of
American borders.
Feedback from High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area directors was overwhelmingly
positive.
The Army Reserve also participates with
the Drug Demand Reduction Program to help
reduce the demand for illegal drugs and
alcohol abuse through education and through
deterrence by randomly testing our soldiers on
a regular basis.
We received a program funding increase
to raise our testing level to more closely
match the Active Component testing level.
The increased funding also allows the
retention of those civilians most critical to
program administration.
RESOURCING
I do wish to discuss several
challenges we face in providing the Army
Reserve the resources it needs.
At the outset, I would like to
emphasize that many of our resourcing
challenges are a consequence of our being
victims of our own success. Successful operations lead additional successful operations
down the road.
This increases operating tempo and
personnel tempo costs and puts stress on
personnel, equipment and facilities with bills
that ultimately must be paid.
Recruiting
and Retention Bonus Programs and Increased
Army Reserve Advertising
Recruiting
resources pay dividends beyond the year of
execution.
For example, Army Reserve advertising
in FY 2002 influences potential recruits
making enlistment decisions in FY 2003-2005.
Thus, we must look at recruiting
resources over time and not limit
consideration to the current or next fiscal
year.
Resourcing the Army Reserve
sufficiently to achieve its average recruiting
workload over the next several years enables
the Army Reserve to achieve its end strength.
A steady, even flow of resources
ensures a better recruiting environment.
Media
advertising costs continue to increase.
Television is most effective at
targeting desired Army audiences because it
dramatically illustrates the Army experience
through sight, sound, and motion.
Successfully meeting the recruiting
mission, which we did in FY 2000, following
several years of failure, comes from many
complex and rapidly changing factors.
The recruiting advertising program,
however, is one of the few factors that we can
control.
FULL-TIME
SUPPORT
An
increase in Full-Time Support (FTS)—Active
Guard/Reservists (AGRs) and Military
Technicians (Miltechs)--is essential to
improve Army Reserve readiness.
One of the greatest challenges facing
the Army Reserve today is an insufficient
number of FTS authorizations to support over
2,300 Army Reserve units in day-to-day
operations.
FTS levels directly impact the
readiness of Army Reserve units by providing
the additional training, command and control,
technical, functional, and military expertise
required to transition from a peacetime to a
wartime posture.
The FTS staff performs all the
day-to-day support functions for the unit.
When FTS levels drop, this affects
readiness levels.
The
Army has identified critical thresholds for
FTS, based on the minimum essential levels to
prepare and maintain units to meet deployment
standards identified in Defense Plans.
The FY03 transformation of the Army’s go to war structure includes
eliminating approximately 300 Title XI Active
Army authorizations from Army Reserve units.
As a coordinated "Army"
decision, the Army Reserve AGR resource ramp
will be accelerated by 300 beginning in FY03.
The goal is to restore the loss of
Active Army end strength from Army Reserve
units with AGRs while continuing to work
towards improving the overall unit readiness
with increased full-time support.
Congress
has been sensitive to the importance of FTS,
and we are grateful for the FY 01
Congressional increase in AGRs and MILTECHs.
This increase reduced the Army Reserve
FTS shortfall by almost a thousand (650
MILTECHs and 300 AGRs).
Additional authorization increases are
essential for the Army Reserve to meet
acceptable readiness standards.
SUMMARY
For
93 years, the United States Army Reserve has
served as a community-based federal force of
trained and ready units and individuals
supporting The Army, here and abroad. We are adaptable, relevant and an integral part of The Army.
We stand ready to answer the call and
with that bring the support of Hometown, USA
to the forefront, demonstrating the resolve of
the American people.
The citizen-soldiers of the Army
Reserve are proud of their country.
They share a deep sense of satisfaction
and accomplishment in the peace and stability
they help create on behalf of all Americans.
We are grateful to the Congress and the
Nation for supporting the Army Reserve and our
most valuable resource, our soldiers — the
sons and daughters of America.
Thank you.
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