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Army restructures commands

June 8, 2006

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, June 8, 2006) – The Army is reorganizing its commands and specified headquarters to accelerate transformation efforts and increase the Army’s responsiveness at home and abroad.

The new structure identifies three types of headquarters: Army Commands, Army Service Component Commands and Direct Reporting Units.

“Breaking the major Army commands out into three entities recognizes the roles and scopes of units’ authorities and responsibilities,” said Col. John Phelan of the Office of Institutional Army Adaptation. “This restructuring defines, aligns and assigns. It also gives functional experts the responsibility and authority to provide seamless support.”

The three Army Commands are: U.S. Army Forces Command (designated by the Secretary of the Army as both an Army Command under the direction of Headquarters, Department of the Army and the Army Service Component Command to U.S. Joint Forces Command), U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command and U.S. Army Materiel Command.

The nine Army Service Component Commands are comprised primarily of operational organizations serving as the Army component for a combatant commander. They are:

• U.S. Army Europe,
• U.S. Army Central,
• U.S. Army North,
• U.S. Army South,
• U.S. Army Pacific,
• U.S. Army Special Operations Command,
• Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, and
• U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Strategic Command and Eighth U.S. Army.

Each of the 11 Direct Reporting Units are comprised of one or more units with institutional or operating functions, providing broad general support to the Army in a normally single, unique discipline not available elsewhere in the Army. They are:

• U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command/9th Signal Command (Army) (NETCOM/9th SC (A)),
• U.S. Army Medical Command,
• U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command,
• U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command,
• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
• U.S. Army Military District of Washington,
• U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command,
• U.S. Military Academy,
• U.S. Army Reserve Command,
• U.S. Army Acquisition Support Command and
• U.S. Army Installation Management Agency.

Realignment changes were necessitated by the Army’s changing missions, said Lt. Col. Darrell Wilson, functional team leader for the realignment.

“In the global-basing strategy that’s been put out, we’re going to become, for the most part, a CONUS-based force that projects capability out to where it needs to be projected,” Wilson said. “We’re becoming modular so we can quickly form up and tailor the right tools for the right job, making us a more agile, adaptable and flexible service.”

The restructuring accomplishes four objectives:

• It recognizes the global role and multi-disciplined functions of the Army Commands;
• It establishes the Army Service Component Commands as reporting directly to the Department while serving as the Army’s single point of contact for a combatant command;
• It acknowledges Direct Reporting Units as functional proponents at the Department of the Army level; and
• It enables the Army to set the foundation for gaining better effectiveness and efficiencies by transforming its business processes, while operationally focusing the theater Armies to combatant commands.

Lineage and heraldic honors will be preserved in the command names and their insignia.

“The Chief of Staff and the Secretary of the Army said, ‘We want to keep alive and link these folks to a patch that keeps the history of the field Army moving,’” Wilson said. “So, the Third Army will become U.S. Army Central; it will be the same organization; they won’t change their patch but officially they become U.S. Army Central.”