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.
2120 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
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