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Joint and Expeditionary focus: Army gets there fast, but not alone

Army News Service

Release Date: 3/9/2004

By Sgt. 1st Class Marcia Triggs

Editor's note: This is the ninth article in a weekly series on the 17 Army focus areas and this one features "A Joint and Expeditionary Army with a Campaign-Quality Capability."

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, March 9, 2004) - The Army's chief and acting secretary were asked by a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee if seamen and airmen were being requested to perform Army duties in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I'm not aware of any such request. But we're looking for capabilities across the force to relieve the Army," said Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker while testifying on Capitol Hill last month. "We fight jointly . it makes perfect sense for the other services to give the Army a reprieve."

Schoomaker spent only a couple of minutes trying to explain to members of Congress that the Army is part of a joint force, but he has given Training and Doctrine Command a long-term directive to architect a campaign that will get Soldiers to embody a joint and expeditionary mindset.

The Army has included joint training in its school for senior officers for a few years now, but the service will soon start teaching joint tactics earlier in the careers of both commissioned and noncommissioned officers, Simpson said.

Blue Force Tracking, a command and control system, is an example of how junior military persons are talking to each other, officials said. From company to theater level commanders, Blue Force Tracking is being used to provide situational awareness and digital command and control for the Army, Marine Corps and Coalition forces, said Michael Lebrun from the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics, & Technology).

"The core of the program is its software," Lebrun said. "Inside of the platform is a digital map that gives you your location. It can also tell you where any other Blue Force Tracking equipped platform is in the area of operations."

It's the first part of reducing the risk of fratricide, Lebrun said. It provides better information on where friendly forces are, and it allows forces to plan better, react better and do a lot of things to mitigate the risk of fratricide, he concluded.

In the near future hand-held versions of Blue Force Tracking will be fielded in Iraq, Lebrun said.

"A Joint and Expeditionary Army with a Campaign Quality " is one of the Army's focus areas. "Basically we want to maximize each services' capabilities and prepare leaders and Soldiers to fight in uncertain and ambiguous environments. The Joint and Expeditionary Task Force is the lens through which we filter many of our transformation efforts," said Bob Simpson, the deputy of the Joint and Expeditionary task force.

Joint Forces Command in concert with the services is refining Joint National Training Capability, which will integrate joint training similar to the way the Army has integrated combined arms training at its combat training centers for some years, Simpson said. And TRADOC is very much involved in the effort, Simpson added.

JNTC was first conceived in 2002, but is now taking a more robust approach to train joint forces, according to the U.S. Forces Joint Command Web site. Included in the training will be real people in real locations using real equipment; real people in simulators and simulated entities in a simulated environment, according to the Web site.

DoD is not constructing another training center, but is combining live, virtual and constructive training to create a joint training capability that will eventually include capabilities resident at the installation level, Simpson said. However, right now the focus is starting the capability at Fort Irwin, Calf., and the other Service's Western Ranges he said.

Officers and NCOs can also expect to see joint education initiated earlier in their professional development schools, Simpson said. Leaders have to see themselves as members of a joint profession, he said. The specifics are being decided in a consensus environment with the other services, Simpson added.

"One of the things about each of the services is that they have unique cultures, and one thing that defines a culture is language," Simpson said. "So part of this process will be to define a common joint language. An important part of the process is integrating service and joint doctrine."

The second piece of the focus area is expeditionary, and Simpson said that Soldiers must realize that the Army's normal state is to be at war.

"We first started trying to change the mindset of the Soldier to a joint and expeditionary one by introducing them to the Warriors Ethos and the Soldiers Creed," Simpson said. "The creeds reinforce that they are part of a great Army team."

"I am a Warrior and a member of a team . I stand ready to deploy, engage and destroy the enemies of the United States of America," states the Soldiers Creed. These words will unconsciously remind Soldiers and leaders that they have to be comfortable with uncertainty, Simpson said.

"Soldiers can't expect to go into a theater where there is an iron mountain of logistics and every pre-condition has been set.," Simpson said. "We don't have a front or a rear, all of our Soldiers deploying into any theater from now on will be in harm's way regardless of where they are on the battlefield."

TRADOC has the lead and is working to change the Army's doctrine, organization, training and leader development. However, Simpson said, every commander has the responsibility to start training all Soldiers to be riflemen first.

(Editor's note: The Army's 17 immediate areas of focus include: The Soldier; The Bench; Combat Training Centers/Battle Command Training Program; Leader Development and Education; Army Aviation; Current to Future Force; The Network; Modularity; Active Component/Reserve Component Balance; Force Stabilization; Actionable Intelligence; Installations as Flagships; Authorities, Responsibilities, and Accountability; Resource Processes; Strategic Communications; Joint Expeditionary Army with a Campaign-quality Capability; and Logistics. To view a brief synopsis of each area, visit The Way Ahead.)